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As leaders of the United States and China met in Beijing last week for a ‘historic’ summit, not far away and not without their knowledge, South Asia is witnessing a churning in which their competing interests’ conflict.
They are unlikely to accept that India is their common target. Pakistan, a common ally of both and India’s adversary, serves their common interests, as well as its own. Notably, things are happening simultaneously, and they make the Bay of Bengal region crucial to India’s geopolitical interests, a huge battleground.
Many developments over the last two years, the media reports and analyses indicate this.
That the US wants to counter the growing Chinese influence in South and Southeast Asia is known. A pro-Chinese military regime rules in Myanmar. Foreign military boots are already on the ground on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
Some foreign presence has spilt over the Indian side in the sensitive north-eastern region where New Delhi maintains a close watch. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested six Ukrainian nationals and one American citizen (Matthew Aaron Van Dyke) on March 13, 2026, under strict anti-terror laws. Arrested at airports in Delhi, Lucknow, and Kolkata, the group has been held in judicial custody. Details are not known.
Both the Big Powers and Pakistan got their ‘breakthrough’ in August 2024 with the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina regime in Bangladesh. Their efforts were facilitated by the interim government led by Professor Mohammed Yunus. Said to be a protégé of the Clintons, he sought to settle scores with Hasina, who had persecuted him and who is now exiled in India.
Yunus sided with the Islamists and gave a free hand to an anti-India campaign, opening the nation to the Big Two as never before. Since the US had been severely critical of Hasina and her government, which was seen as preventing the changes that are now underway, India’s protests went unheeded. What began under the Biden administration has since been consolidated under Trump-2. As Sino-Pak interests also converge, India stands isolated.
The Tarique Rahman government took office after winning the elections in February this year. It has annulled many of the orders and decisions of the Yunus regime that impacted the domestic affairs. But not the stance towards the US and China. Both the big powers hold the key to Bangladesh’s well-being. China is also the largest trader and arms supplier.
While India has little choice but to lump this, to its chagrin, Pakistan has returned to re-establish itself in its erstwhile eastern province that separated after the freedom struggle in 1971.
On May 8, 2026, Bangladesh and Pakistan signed a law enforcement MoU. It was the first institutionalized bilateral intelligence-sharing framework between the two countries. Its implications for India, for regional stability, and for the future of South Asia’s security order need to be recognized and reckoned with.
Significantly, this move complicates matters for Rahman as well. He must deal with the Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed the freedom movement and the students who had worked to depose Hasina. Together, they have won an unprecedented 32 per cent of the popular votes cast.
India shares 4,156 kilometers of land border with Bangladesh. But geography is only one of the problems. India’s north-eastern states Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh are connected to the Indian mainland by the Siliguri Corridor that is less than 22 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.
Indian defense planners have long identified this corridor as the country’s most strategically exposed geography. The management of security threats in the northeast has, for decades, depended critically on intelligence cooperation with a friendly Bangladesh. Now, Dhaka is planning to set up an air force and a missile base close to this corridor, and India is preparing to counter this.
Hence, the formalization of Pakistani intelligence’s adjacency to Bangladesh’s security apparatus becomes critical for India. It opens for the first time since 1971, the operational possibility of Pakistani intelligence’s access to information about India’s most sensitive strategic frontier.
The signing of the MOU indicates how the India-Bangladesh bilateral relationship has already shifted, and how much operational latitude Islamabad has gained within Dhaka’s own borders. Along with the growing military ties, Bangladesh’s senior civil officials now train in Pakistan.
Begun by Yunus and continuing under Rahman, Dhaka has hosted Pakistan’s military and visitors affiliated with religious and ideological organizations with documented connections to radical Islamist networks. “The Eurasian Times” says that “the permissive environment of Bangladesh’s new political order has created space that, under the Sheikh Hasina-led government, could not have existed.”
In geopolitical terms, Bangladesh’s repositioning toward the China–Pakistan strategic axis, and signing security pacts with the US, fundamentally alters the balance of influence in the Bay of Bengal.
Happening simultaneously, and raising India’s security concerns, is the United States and Bangladesh finalizing defense agreements that will grant the US Navy direct access to Bangladeshi ports and airports in the Bay of Bengal.
For many decades, the region had steered away from naval confrontations or competition among global powers. With the US entering the scene to counter China, the situation is poised to change.
India has a “third front” to worry about as it faces China on one side and now, the US on the other. The region that had been peaceful for so long is ripe for global competition and resultant tensions.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article/column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of South Asian Herald.
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