Strategic Tightrope - Caught Between Two Big Economic Powers - China and India - Bangladesh Must Gain from both

Byline: Col (retd.) R Hariharan - E-mail:colhari@yahoo.com Sandwiched between two huge powers - India and China - Bangladesh has little option but to do a strategic tightrope walk in its external relations. While India is trying to flex its economic and political power beyond the confines of South Asia, China is bent upon becoming a global economic and military power. As they expand their influence, overlap of their strategic spaces becomes inevitable. This is already evident from the increasing Chinese footprint in South Asia prompting India and the U.S. to seek greater strategic convergence between the two countries. This makes the tightrope walk of Bangladesh a little more precarious, as it is located in the sensitive underbelly of India's troubled northeast region.