Chinese FM Wang Yi scheduled to visit Dhaka tomorrow

[BananaRepublicUK]

Sanghis like yogi adityanath is no better than Taliban!

At least Taliban aren't trying islamization of all world like , Al Qaeda , brother Hood and sanghis ( ghar wapsi)!

Also we are countering separatists in CHT ! So it's not that we are living a very peaceful life! Or should I say that our soldiers are spending sleepless night there , so we are sleeping like selfish?

Is that the reason our paramour doesn't want us militarily strong, so that separatists can separate CHT for their jhoomland?


Insecure ? Yes because if you have neighbour like India, you can't be totally secured!

Emotional? No , just realistic!


I don't think so. No one said that we can't do business with sanghis. We must do business , because they have huge market!

We all just want us to be beneficial! India can't be beneficial one sided! Period.

You keep highlighting problems.

What’s your solution?

Sanghis like yogi adityanath is no better than Taliban!

At least Taliban aren't trying islamization of all world like , Al Qaeda , brother Hood and sanghis ( ghar wapsi)!

Also we are countering separatists in CHT ! So it's not that we are living a very peaceful life! Or should I say that our soldiers are spending sleepless night there , so we are sleeping like selfish?

Is that the reason our paramour doesn't want us militarily strong, so that separatists can separate CHT for their jhoomland?


Insecure ? Yes because if you have neighbour like India, you can't be totally secured!

Emotional? No , just realistic!


I don't think so. No one said that we can't do business with sanghis. We must do business , because they have huge market!

We all just want us to be beneficial! India can't be beneficial one sided! Period.

Yep! Taliban just burn down schools.

Much better!

 

[VikingRaider]

You keep highlighting problems.

What’s your solution?

I don't know the solution! Perhaps Oxford educated Reza Kibria and his kind can find a solution;not overnight though!

But not current back bencher politicians from BAL and BNP!

Yep! Taliban just burn down schools.

Much better!

Sanghis are beating Muslims to death for eating or carrying beef ! They are threatening to expell their own Muslim people! Much better indeed!

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

I don't know the solution! Perhaps Oxford educated Reza Kibria and his kind can find a solution;not overnight though!

But not current back bencher politicians from BAL and BNP!

Sanghis are beating Muslims to death for eating or carrying beef ! They are threatening to expell their own Muslim people! Much better indeed!

Reza did a course in Oxford - not Oxford educated.

You can only be called Oxford educated if you do your under grad there and receive 1:1 tuition.

Being a Sylheti, we know Reza very well. He is extremely arrogant to succeed in the retail politics of Bangladesh.

He is a US stooge and will antagonise China. Making BD even more reliant on India.

You need to think things through.

You also need to stop worrying about Indian Muslims. They are not our problem. We need to stop worrying about other peoples’ Muslims. Look how Rohingyas are repaying us!!!

 

[VikingRaider]

You also need to stop worrying about Indian Muslims.

Don't put words in my mouth! It was you who started taliban things first! I'm not worried about Indian Muslims.

(But it looks you are too much worried about Afghanistan!)

Stay on topic thank you!

Be glad that we don’t have a border with Afghanistan

 

[Tom-tom]

That would easy if we didn't have a bully like India

Also those who have like this meagre comment, have take into consideration, that bdesh relies both on west for exports and investment to China and infrastructure development from China

 

[EasyNow]

"Post of the month award" goes to you from me Bhai. I couldn't have put it more succinctly.

Only a rabid India-shill will deny these basic facts. And these shills are most probably backstabbers or false-flaggers.

These trade issues have nothing to do with people-to-people relations with Indians.

But these trade issues are still REAL and need to be far more even-keeled for long-term relations between our countries to be better.

Only a few reasons why these issues continue.

1) Indian govt. is selfishly occupied with preserving their trade status quo in Bangladesh (massive exports to our market) to the detriment of our economic growth. We will forever be dependent on Indian imports for even the most basic items like FMCG products.

2) They have twisted Hasina's arms to put key people in our commerce ministry, headed by Tipu Munshi (himself with possible Indian ancestry and of course connections with Assamese and WB leaders) who manipulates our tariff structure to allow unbridled Indian imports.

3) Indian govt. keeps on giving us lip-service about allowing Bangladesh exports to their market which can easily support even a dozen times of what they take in now. But real story is the opposite. They will accept imports from other countries, but not Bangladesh next door, even though our exports may be way cheaper. This is a strategic policy to keep us weak continually. Khawabey kintu nijey khabena.

4) With Hasina's help, Immigration ministry looks the other way and lets illegal Indian workers siphon tens of Billions of dollars every year from our hard-earned remittance coffers to India. Our reserve should have been $80 Billion instead of the $40 Billion we have now. Why is the Govt. short on reserves, this is one MAJOR, MAJOR reason.

5) Bangladesh is the third or fourth largest remittance source to India. Do you see any gratitude from India because of this? Gratitude comes in the form of a middle finger shown.

Surprised to see you stooping to the 'false flagger' narrative @Bilal9

Let's keep discussion civil among ourselves - these members are providing reasoned explanations for their points, we should counter them with reasoning not conspiracy theories.

The dependence on India that you have highlighted is not a new thing. Surrounded 90% by India, we will always rely on them to a certain extent. But the growth BD has achieved despite this, proves that BD is playing the wicket correctly.

I don't believe for a minute that Modi and India would willingly allow BD to beat India on per capita earnings - but it happened - at great political shame to Modi. So no everything is not controlled by India, though they would like to.

Isn't it a shame that a bump comes in the road (fuel prices, global recession) and people immediately start spewing grand conspiracy theories.

 

[UKBengali]

Surprised to see you stooping to the 'false flagger' narrative @Bilal9

Let's keep discussion civil among ourselves - these members are providing reasoned explanations for their points, we should counter them with reasoning not conspiracy theories.

The dependence on India that you have highlighted is not a new thing. Surrounded 90% by India, we will always rely on them to a certain extent. But the growth BD has achieved despite this, proves that BD is playing the wicket correctly.

I don't believe for a minute that Modi and India would willingly allow BD to beat India on per capita earnings - but it happened - at great political shame to Modi. So no everything is not controlled by India, though they would like to.

Isn't it a shame that a bump comes in the road (fuel prices, global recession) and people immediately start spewing grand conspiracy theories.

India has no control about BD per capita. It could stop trading with BD but then it would also come off badly as well lol.

They would of course like to keep ahead of BD as a matter of pride but even the hardest core Hinduvta realise that an economically successful BD is actually good for India overall.

BD is the 4th largest export market now for India and could become 3rd largest by 2030.

India even stands to make a lot of money(hundreds of milllions of dollars every year) just by transit fees once hydroelectric power starts flowing from Nepal/Bhutan to BD via it's territory. The first power will flow in 2026.

All those that are against trade with India have no answer to what exactly is the alternative? One or two have even suggested Pakistan but I think they need to look at a map just to see how ridiculous this proposition is.
Anyway Pakistan is a tiny economy that is smaller than BD and the gap will grow as BD is likely to keep growing a lot faster than Pakistan over the next 10-15 years.

No wonders their views hold absolutely no sway on the ground as they are not grounded in logic and common sense.

BD absolutely must try to maintain good relations with India as then it would have this large country as a balance to the USA and China. This is something unique that BD can and is leveraging in the global competiton between USA and China.

 

[VikingRaider]

Also those who have like this meagre comment, have take into consideration, that bdesh relies both on west for exports and investment to China and infrastructure development from China

Yes that's why from years I'm saying that we must remain neutral!

Only one thing I added and that is we will choose China not west , if we are incase forced to join any side! It's not about joining any side by our own decision!

Yes the reality is both side can force us to choose one side ; same as usa forced Pakistan to join their side against soviet!

Also few days ago usa forced Pakistan regime change!

So what you want me to remember, I already know it!

Perhaps before jumping to conclusion, we should thoroughly read each others point of view several times!

Although two people liked your post ,only one ( me ) is Bangladeshi among them! So Bangladesh is mostly my ( our as well ) concern, not others!

Specially ours , who are living and will continue to live in Bangladesh!

That's why I'm replying!

Thanks and regards!

 

[leonblack08]

I wanted to stay away from this conversation, but I guess I can no longer resist it.

Going back to the statement that triggered this argument, "a prosperous BD is in India's interest". There is partial truth to that. But the statement needs to be qualified to read, "a not so poor AND submissive BD is in India's best interest."

There is absolutely no benefit to India if Bangladesh is both prosperous and have a strong independent identity. Rather it is a threat to their dominance in the region. An economically strong and independent Bangladesh can easily thwart any future CAA style attempt by Indian Bhakts to forcefully push-out their Muslims to Bangladesh. For all the niceties of the current Indian leadership towards Bangladesh, let's not forget their political party's ideology is one strictly based along the idea of having a Hindu nation back to the pre-Mughal era. Hence we see the propagation of revisionist history in their media, and marginalization of their Muslim population. If anything, that alone poses the greatest threat to peace in this region.

India does not need to invade Bangladesh militarily, they just need to ensure they continue with their covert tactics - cultural invasion, influencing and subduing minds through the society's intellectuals and media- propagating narratives such as atheism and secularism is the way of the future and Islam is backwards and dangerous. They simply need to ensure a population in BD who are submissive and will not go out of hand so to speak.

But despite all that, trade and regional cooperation is needed between the two countries under circumstances which benefit Bangladesh. We simply cannot avoid it because of our geography. But we need to keep factors like these in mind -

1. Trading Strategic resources and dependency in general: importing electricity from India is only a good idea if the total volume is less than 5-10% or even lower of our entire portfolio. We are seeing a live demonstration of how EU is scrambling to find alternate sources after years of dependency on Russian gas. Similarly, raw materials for our key industries such as cotton and supplies of food - we need to consistently a diverse range of suppliers and not be largely dependent on India.
2. Regional security: I am all for cooperation to fight trans-border criminal activities and insurgency and/or piracy. However, while we have taken out ULFA to India's benefit (Source), are we getting the same kind of support from India in getting rid of separatists in CHT who are hiding inside Indian territory? If anything, the violence in CHT has gone up over the recent years with PCJSS and UPDFs fighting amongst each other and killing civilians and military personnel in the process.
3. Connectivity: BD allows connectivity to India's North-East through transshipment. Why aren't we getting the same deal to access market in Nepal? How much economic benefit are we getting out of the facility we are providing to India? If BD is to go ahead and provide Transit as well, we need to ask what BD will get in return and is it comparable to what we are trading off?

Sheikh Hasina, so far has done a reasonably good job in balancing India (and by extension the West) and China, although perhaps at the expense of having a toothless military filled with "Yes"-men taking over military leadership and military failing to add any serious offensive ability. Nonetheless, there are signs which indicate she understands the risk India poses to sovereignty of Bangladesh and hence we see her with a balanced foreign policy. Bangladesh should continue to remain neutral and not take any side. We cannot afford to be on any one particular camp.

The real challenge for Bangladesh would be when Hasina's successors come to power. I am afraid there are far too many within BAL senior leadership who lack character & patriotism and are highly susceptible to become a puppet and do India's bidding. These individuals and their affiliates are corrupt to the core. The corruption in this country is at an unprecedented at the moment. For instance, Funds deposited by Bangladeshi citizens and banks with different Swiss banks witnessed a massive rise of 55 percent to 871 million Swiss francs. This does not even take into account the money laundered through hidden channel, like our Star boy PK Halder sitting in India with Billions of stolen money.

No one in Bangladesh can make money without connections to the ruling party. While India may not have anything to do with money laundered out of Bangladesh, it does show the mentality of those in position of power in Bangladesh. They are screaming we are corrupt & devoid of morals, and ready to sell our soul to the highest bidder.

So to conclude this long post - while we should trade and cooperate in areas which are mutually beneficial, we should never feel the false sense of security to the idea that India is our friend. Because it is not. They are our neighbor and we can't choose what neighbor we have. They will always look after their self-interest and we should look after our own. And unfortunately as it happens, some of our self-interests are mutually exclusive.

 

[Bilal9]

Surprised to see you stooping to the 'false flagger' narrative @Bilal9

Let's keep discussion civil among ourselves - these members are providing reasoned explanations for their points, we should counter them with reasoning not conspiracy theories.

The dependence on India that you have highlighted is not a new thing. Surrounded 90% by India, we will always rely on them to a certain extent. But the growth BD has achieved despite this, proves that BD is playing the wicket correctly.

I don't believe for a minute that Modi and India would willingly allow BD to beat India on per capita earnings - but it happened - at great political shame to Modi. So no everything is not controlled by India, though they would like to.

Isn't it a shame that a bump comes in the road (fuel prices, global recession) and people immediately start spewing grand conspiracy theories.

Yes point well taken. But why would you say there are no false flaggers? There ARE false flaggers in our subsection. Just watch their narratives. You will catch their drift, see what and who they stand up for. Not Bangladesh, that is for sure.

Yeah I don't "stoop to" discussing it all the time, but everyone knows. Ask @Nergal bhai, he knows as well. It's an open secret. False flagging in this forum is a disease for posters from India. Bangladeshi don't go and false flag in the India section that I know of.

On bilateral "trade" with India - maybe we will rely on India to import things because they are a bigger country - but they MUST reciprocate.

They will also need to allow our exports, which they absolutely DO NOT, in proportion. India makes close to 45~50 Billion yearly from our market, all told. We make $2 Billion from theirs. It's a friggin' joke.

Fifty years of this uneven relationship, and we should be fine with it?

They have illegally blocked our exports to their market using flimsy pretexts like "dumping" allegations, or alleging products are relabeled that are made in China....meanwhile their entire market is flooded with Chinese products imported directly.

And talking about flooding our job market with their Indian illegals, what educated Bangladeshi talent went and got a job in India at an Indian owned corporate company, name even one? How about illegally?

Is our job market a free-for-all? Do our Bangladeshi people not deserve jobs and a decent lifestyle in their OWN FRIGGIN' COUNTRY ??

While Hasina's govt, looks the other way ??

Our country is flooded with India-shill Muslims-in-name-only (MINO) Chetona idiots doing the bidding of India, it has exceeded all manner of reason. It is time it stopped.

Meanwhile we hire Indian "C" level people at multiple lakhs per month. They siphon away our reserves to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, every year. Bangladesh is the third/fourth largest remittance source for India OFFICIALLY. Unofficially by Hundi probably even larger.

These are valid questions.

If left to their own devices, leeches (both from Sanghiland and our land) will suck us dry.

Billion Billion export korey luv ki, jodi shob Bharotey niye jai ?

Hindu hok ba Muslim hok, amader desher lok khabeta ki ??

Is this why we made our country "independent", to make it a de-facto vassal and slave of India, to exploit in all manner of ways?

I wanted to stay away from this conversation, but I guess I can no longer resist it.

Going back to the statement that triggered this argument, "a prosperous BD is in India's interest". There is partial truth to that. But the statement needs to be qualified to read, "a not so poor AND submissive BD is in India's best interest."

There is absolutely no benefit to India if Bangladesh is both prosperous and have a strong independent identity. Rather it is a threat to their dominance in the region. An economically strong and independent Bangladesh can easily thwart any future CAA style attempt by Indian Bhakts to forcefully push-out their Muslims to Bangladesh. For all the niceties of the current Indian leadership towards Bangladesh, let's not forget their political party's ideology is one strictly based along the idea of having a Hindu nation back to the pre-Mughal era. Hence we see the propagation of revisionist history in their media, and marginalization of their Muslim population. If anything, that alone poses the greatest threat to peace in this region.

India does not need to invade Bangladesh militarily, they just need to ensure they continue with their covert tactics - cultural invasion, influencing and subduing minds through the society's intellectuals and media- propagating narratives such as atheism and secularism is the way of the future and Islam is backwards and dangerous. They simply need to ensure a population in BD who are submissive and will not go out of hand so to speak.

But despite all that, trade and regional cooperation is needed between the two countries under circumstances which benefit Bangladesh. We simply cannot avoid it because of our geography. But we need to keep factors like these in mind -

1. Trading Strategic resources and dependency in general: importing electricity from India is only a good idea if the total volume is less than 5-10% or even lower of our entire portfolio. We are seeing a live demonstration of how EU is scrambling to find alternate sources after years of dependency on Russian gas. Similarly, raw materials for our key industries such as cotton and supplies of food - we need to consistently a diverse range of suppliers and not be largely dependent on India.
2. Regional security: I am all for cooperation to fight trans-border criminal activities and insurgency and/or piracy. However, while we have taken out ULFA to India's benefit (Source), are we getting the same kind of support from India in getting rid of separatists in CHT who are hiding inside Indian territory? If anything, the violence in CHT has gone up over the recent years with PCJSS and UPDFs fighting amongst each other and killing civilians and military personnel in the process.
3. Connectivity: BD allows connectivity to India's North-East through transshipment. Why aren't we getting the same deal to access market in Nepal? How much economic benefit are we getting out of the facility we are providing to India? If BD is to go ahead and provide Transit as well, we need to ask what BD will get in return and is it comparable to what we are trading off?

Sheikh Hasina, so far has done a reasonably good job in balancing India (and by extension the West) and China, although perhaps at the expense of having a toothless military filled with "Yes"-men taking over military leadership and military failing to add any serious offensive ability. Nonetheless, there are signs which indicate she understands the risk India poses to sovereignty of Bangladesh and hence we see her with a balanced foreign policy. Bangladesh should continue to remain neutral and not take any side. We cannot afford to be on any one particular camp.

The real challenge for Bangladesh would be when Hasina's successors come to power. I am afraid there are far too many within BAL senior leadership who lack character & patriotism and are highly susceptible to become a puppet and do India's bidding. These individuals and their affiliates are corrupt to the core. The corruption in this country is at an unprecedented at the moment. For instance, Funds deposited by Bangladeshi citizens and banks with different Swiss banks witnessed a massive rise of 55 percent to 871 million Swiss francs. This does not even take into account the money laundered through hidden channel, like our Star boy PK Halder sitting in India with Billions of stolen money.

No one in Bangladesh can make money without connections to the ruling party. While India may not have anything to do with money laundered out of Bangladesh, it does show the mentality of those in position of power in Bangladesh. They are screaming we are corrupt & devoid of morals, and ready to sell our soul to the highest bidder.

So to conclude this long post - while we should trade and cooperate in areas which are mutually beneficial, we should never feel the false sense of security to the idea that India is our friend. Because it is not. They are our neighbor and we can't choose what neighbor we have. They will always look after their self-interest and we should look after our own. And unfortunately as it happens, some of our self-interests are mutually exclusive.

Wise words bhai, couldn't have said it better myself...

 

[UKBengali]

1. Connectivity: BD allows connectivity to India's North-East through transshipment. Why aren't we getting the same deal to access market in Nepal? How much economic benefit are we getting out of the facility we are providing to India? If BD is to go ahead and provide Transit as well, we need to ask what BD will get in return and is it comparable to what we are trading off?

No point going over your other points as we are going to go round in circles.

India is the gateway to Nepal for BD and allows BD to export over 100 million US dollars to that country. This in a country of just 40 million people.

BD will be getting transit for 500MW of cheap and clean hydropower from Nepal in 2026. Many GWs could flow by 2030.

People just need to research the whole relatioship between built up between BD-India-Nepal and potentially Bhutan in a holistic manner, rather than looking at small bits in piecemeal.

The idea that any one of the countries can prosper without the others is outdated thinking in the 2020s.

 

[leonblack08]

No point going over your other points as we are going to go round in circles.

India is the gateway to Nepal for BD and allows BD to export over 100 million US dollars to that country. This in a country of just 40 million people.

BD will be getting transit for 500MW of cheap and clean hydropower from Nepal in 2026. Many GWs could flow by 2030.

People just need to research the whole relatioship between built up between BD-India-Nepal and potentially Bhutan in a holistic manner, rather than looking at small bits in piecemeal.

The idea that any one of the countries can prosper without the others is outdated thinking in the 2020s.

Nepal has been asking for access to Bangladeshi Mongla port for years now, as it will facilitate their overseas trade. Mongla port is closer to Nepal than the Kolkata port. But they haven't yet been able to obtain it because of India's unwillingness to cooperate in this matter. They want Nepal to use Kolkata port and always remain dependent on India to maintain political clout. One of the many reasons why Nepal tilted towards China in recent years.

The hydroelectricity project you referred to - is being developed by India's GMR group, so they have a vested interest in facilitating it. Additionally, as I have mentioned before, strategic resource such as power is how you build and maintain influence geopolitically. For India, allowing electricity transit to Bangladesh is completely to their advantage as it generates revenue and geopolitical capital. And hence they are more than willing to cooperate in this case.

Economics and geopolitics go hand in hand. You can not assume geopolitics as a constant factor and take it out of equation completely. This region is not EU, we do not have a common religion (Christianity) or a common ideology (secularism) connecting us together. In Europe it was possible to build a cooperative region after centuries of wars was through years of social engineering post WW2 and the fear of the bogeyman - USSR / Russia.

There is a great mistrust and conflicting interests that prevails in this region. You cannot reconcile with an increasingly dominant right wing ideology like Akhand Hindu Bharat with an agenda to have millions of Muslims in Sub-continent have their "Gharwapasi" or mass conversion to Hinduism. The only way you cooperate with that and economically "prosper" is you turn a blind eye and eventually let go off your Bengali Muslim identity. It really isn't much different than countries who collaborated with Nazis. There is no value of having such economic prosperity.

You can be optimistic about regional development and prosperity through cooperation in this region all you want, but if you do not take the ground political reality in consideration, you are not being realistic in my opinion. Your view is oversimplification of the ground realities.

So, I think it is best to conclude discussion here as I do not agree with all your points and likewise you do not agree with mine.

 

[UKBengali]

. The only way you cooperate with that and economically "prosper" is you turn a blind eye and eventually let go off your Bengali Muslim identity. It really isn't much different than countries who collaborated with Nazis. There is no value of having such economic prosperity.

This line is a giveaway here.

You simply have no confidence in how strong that BD as a unitary secular state can be over a multi-ethnic concoction that is India.

Feel free to overestimate India and its power but some of us do not think much of what a chaotic country like that is capable of. I am a little surprised it has not broken up already and need to commend the India state in that aspect.

We are not that impressed by what we see in India unlike some others here.

Anyway you will have to reconcile to a BD that is going to get more closely economically integrated with India, Nepal and Bhutan. You can argue against this on this forum but it will make zero diference to the reality on the ground.

 

[leonblack08]

This line is a giveaway here.

You simply have no confidence in how strong that BD as a unitary secular state can be over a multi-ethnic concoction that is India.

Feel free to overestimate India and its power but some of us do not think much of what a chaotic country like that is capable of. I am a little surprised it has not broken up already and need to commend the India state in that aspect.

We are not that impressed by what we see in India unlike some others here.

Anyway you will have to reconcile to a BD that is going to get more closely economically integrated with India, Nepal and Bhutan. You can argue against this on this forum but it will make zero diference to the reality on the ground.

BD as a unitary secular state - Except it is not.

Even with unitary ethnicity, BD population is deeply divided across multiple line. We have the seculars, the religious, the ones who think their district is better than the rest and so on.

On one hand you have uber liberal seculars who wouldn't mind going back to pre-1947 and merge with India, and on the other hand you have those who wants Bangladesh to become an Islamic Emirate. When those type of polarizing sentiments exists in society, we are as vulnerable as the multi-ethnic Indians.

Anyway, we will see as future unfolds.

 

[VikingRaider]

@leonblack08 ,Bhai , Mashallah! Very strong and rational messages that our Bangladeshi Hindutva supporters can't counter effectively! Keep it up!