Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming on Monday warned that Dhaka-Beijing bilateral ties would be “substantially damaged” if Bangladesh decides to join the US-led security alliance Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) in any form.
He said this message was conveyed to the Bangladesh government by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe during his recent visit to Dhaka.
The ambassador was responding to a question during a virtual briefing organised by the Diplomatic Correspondents’ Association, Bangladesh or DCAB, ahead of the delivery of 500,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine from Sinopharm on May 12 as a gift.
US, Australia, Japan and India are the members of Quad. They held a summit on March 12 and reaffirmed their commitment to quadrilateral cooperation. “We bring diverse perspectives and are united in a shared vision for the free and open Indo-Pacific. We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion,” they said in a joint statement after the virtual summit.
The Chinese ambassador said Beijing considers this as a “small group of alliance against China”.
“They (Quad) say this is for economic purpose…but that is not true,” the ambassador said, adding that Japan joined the alliance because ‘it’s against China’.
“Obviously it will not be a good idea for Bangladesh to participate in this small club of four because it will substantially damage bilateral relations. We don’t like to see any form of participating by Bangladesh in this small group,” he asserted.
Bangladesh earlier joined the China-led belt and road initiative under which big infrastructure projects are being financed by Beijing. Bangladesh also joined the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy and Japan’s BIG-B or the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt.
The foreign ministry sees those as complementary to each other, not conflicting. Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen also maintains that Bangladesh would do whatever good for its people.
The minister could not be reached on Monday for comments after Chinese envoy’s statement.
During the visit, according to Xinhua news agency, the Chinese defence minister last month conveyed that both “countries should make joint efforts against powers outside the region setting up military alliances in South Asia and practicing hegemonism to maintain peace and stability in the region”.
The ambassador, however, said China and Bangladesh have been "champions of multilateralism, humanitarianism and international collaboration at the regional and multilateral levels, an example of which would be the six-country Foreign Ministers’ Video Meeting on COVID-19 Response among China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka held on April 27th this year."
