Staff Reporter :
Chinese Foreign Minister (FM) Wang Yi is likely to visit Dhaka on August 6 to discuss on various bilateral and regional issues which has already drawn much attention amid the paradigm shift of global politics in this region.
Foreign Ministry sources said that they were working on fixing the final date of the arrival of Chinese FM and they have so far the schedule date on August 6-7.
Sources said that it would likely to be a two-day meeting when Wang Yi will pay a courtesy call with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina apart from his discussion with his counterpart Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen.
“Chinese Foreign Minister is arriving here. My office is working on
the schedule,” Dr Momen told the journalists after holding a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan in a city hotel on Friday said.
Sounding critical of the local media which published reports highlighting that Foreign Minister is giving much importance to Cambodia meeting than the Chinese FM meeting, he said, “Chinese Foreign Minister is a very respectable person. He is very close to me.”
“Chinese Embassy designed a programme about his visit. According to their schedule I will not be available. He will come and I will not receive him. It does not look good. Then I placed a counter proposal if he would have deferred his visit for one or two days. But it came in the media in different way. Generally meetings are fixed on mutual consent,” he added.
Asked about his visit schedule, he said, “My office is working on it. I have a meeting in Cambodia. The problem is that we don’t have any direct flight to from Cambodia. I will return home whatever flight I will get at the earliest time.”
He further said, “Chinese Foreign Minister will visit a number of countries. So the gap during his tour is very little. We are trying our best to accommodate his programme.”
Foreign Minister said that he would be happy to receive Chinese FM.
The diplomatic analysts said that Wang Yi’s visit would be very significant amid the backdrop of post-Covid and Ukraine-Russia war.
China has a great interest in this region for his smooth functioning of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) programme. But the Indo-Pacific Strategy in where United States has a direct involvement has made China worried.
Apart from this, there is a perception that the US wants Bangladesh to join QUAD – a strategic alliance between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.
China is also worried about QUAD activities in this region as it thinks that such alliance may pose threat to China for its BRI programme.
Amid such a situation, Wang Yi will be visiting Bangladesh to talk on the entire gamut of bilateral and regional issues, sources said.
