Send message to Contributor

Contribution short abstract

The paper will contribute to international relations literature by examining the discourse on how political regime change in Bangladesh impacts on navigating geopolitical alignment, economic statecraft regarding managing its economic ties with the USA, China, Japan, and India.

Contribution long abstract

Bangladesh strategically positioned as a nodal hub between South and Southeast Asia, holds strategic importance for key powers such as China, India, Japan, and the USA. As a middle power, Bangladesh strategically balanced the presence of major powers for long time. However, sudden fall of political regime by July revolution 2024 in Bangladesh changed the direction of its foreign policy resulting into geopolitical turbulence and realignment. While India, with historical ties and geographical proximity, played a critical role in trade, security, and regional stability, in the changed political landscape, Bangladesh-India relations deteriorated, on the contrary, China took the opportunity to fill the gap and Bangladesh-China relations improved significantly through various projects and agreements. Bangladesh is increasingly engaging with China on several fronts while its dealing with India is being limited. This is quite evident that Bangladesh is currently facing a geopolitical turbulence in dealing with major powers. Drawing from the literature on middle power and economic statecraft, applying trade, FDI, Official Development Assistance (ODA) and state engagements data from 2010 to 2025, this paper sheds light on how Bangladesh navigates the complex dynamics of global geopolitics as a middle power in South Asia. Bangladesh loses its strategical balances with the change of domestic political regime. The article concludes that, imbalances in Bangladesh’s engagements with these key powers could bring potential security threats as well as economic losses. Bangladesh should leverage and remain on the balanced track without falling into the trap of geopolitics