Bangladesh needs balanced international relations, in which the major powers should be considered through a same set of rules. It’s not about choosing and giving priority to one country over another but it’s about the importance of national sovereignty with the right kind of balance in maintaining external relations. Particularly, it is crucial to have full control over the numerable foreign backed development projects and to exercise strict monitoring over construction, and ultimately maintain sovereignty over these key pieces of public infrastructure. For instance – implementing mega projects by taking huge foreign loans have many times forced the borrower to compromise national sovereignty. Given the billions of dollars of loans the government is accessing from India, China, Japan and other countries – it must ensure that there are no unforeseeable expenses and also that a potentially transformative project not become a drain on public finances. Also the people in power need to judiciously and diplomatically calculate the actual reasons why a major power intends to give credit, loan or grants.
The US diplomat pointedly mentioned – Bangladesh must seriously focus on increasing trade in South Asia while maintain greater regional connectivity, both in terms of soft and hard infrastructure. Sadly less than three per cent of Bangladesh’s exports go to India and other countries in South Asia. The decision makers on our foreign policy and maintaining international trade must address these issues.
Except North America, Europe and a few major Asian powers our international relations are quite negligible despite having embassies in many countries.
