Strategic Hedging in a Multipolar Indo-Pacific: The Future of Bangladesh’s Relations with China and Russia toward 2035

Abstract

Nimur Rahman Durjoy

Bangladesh is entering a period in which its development requirements and geographic position increasingly intersect with great-power competition. China has become central to Bangladesh’s import structure, infrastructure cooperation, industrial ambitions, and defence supply relationships, while Russia occupies a narrower but strategically consequential role through nuclear energy and long-term technical cooperation. At the same time, Bangladesh’s export exposure to Western markets, geographic interdependence with India, and stated preference for an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific constrain any durable alignment with a single geopolitical bloc. This paper examines how Bangladesh’s relations with China and Russia may evolve toward 2035. It uses a structured qualitative evidence synthesis and scenario-analysis framework drawing on official policy documents, bilateral statements, international institutional data, and peer-reviewed or established policy literature. The paper argues that Bangladesh’s most plausible trajectory is neither alliance with a China–Russia axis nor geopolitical decoupling from Beijing and Moscow. Rather, Dhaka is likely to pursue a form of issue-based strategic hedging: deepening economic and infrastructure ties with China, preserving high-value energy cooperation with Russia, maintaining security and geographic accommodation with India, and protecting access to Western trade, finance, and technology. The sustainability of this strategy will depend on debt and project governance, sanctions compliance, defence diversification, maritime policy, export diversification, and institutional capacity. Three scenarios—disciplined multialignment, asymmetric China dependence, and bloc-pressure fragmentation—are developed for the period to 2035. The paper concludes that strategic autonomy for Bangladesh will depend less on diplomatic rhetoric than on reducing concentrated dependencies across trade, finance, energy, defence, and critical infrastructure.

PDF