‘US and many of its Western partners are very comfortable engaging with Yunus’ 

Since the interim government led by Dr Muhammad Yunus took office in Bangladesh, the US has shown what seems to be a reinvigorated interest in advancing the partnership with the country. 

A high-level US delegation was in Dhaka just last week to find ways to help foster economic growth and assist with the reforms the new government is planning.

In this interview with TBS, Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, and also a writer, spoke about how the two countries' relations are going to evolve soon and how it is going to impact regional politics.

India always extended unwavering support to the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Since India is also an important partner of the US, how does the latter's renewed interest in Bangladesh impact India's foreign policy toward the country?

Largely speaking, there are a lot of convergences between New Delhi and Washington when it comes to approaches to the region, particularly because of the shared desire to counter China. But Bangladesh is an exception just because the US is much more comfortable with and committed to working with the new Bangladesh government than India is. 

That's been very clear from day one when the interim government first took office. And I think that India certainly was deleteriously impacted more than any other country in the region by this sudden change in power. And I think that it's going to be difficult for New Delhi to move forward. My own view is that its interests are better served by pursuing a workable relationship with the interim government, even if it's not a warm one like that with Sheikh Hasina. 

However, I think that ultimately, the way that the US approaches the relationship with Bangladesh is not going to impact US-India relations in a big way. I mean, I think at the end of the day, they both still continue to have a similar view in the sense that well, we don't want this country to move so close to China that we both have to really worry about our strategic interests — that's going to remain in place. 

But yeah, the fact that one of India's closest partners is going to be engaging very closely with this new government in Bangladesh is going to make India's play even more difficult in the sense that it really doesn't have a strategy for now moving forward with Bangladesh. And the fact that so much of the world, including some of its top partners, are rushing forward to engage with the interim government, you know, that's something that's going to pose a challenge to India as well. 

One of the major reasons why you had tensions in the US-Bangladesh relationship over the last two years is that the US was really pushing Bangladesh hard on the issue of free and fair elections... We don't know when the next elections are going to be in Bangladesh, but once one is scheduled, then, you know, I think the US might be very comfortable coming back to that position that had the importance of free and fair elections in Bangladesh. 

Will it upset China in the long run? The World Bank is now keen to lend more money to Bangladesh. Earlier, China offered a $20 billion loan, although only a small part has been released so far. So vis-a-vis the US's engagement in Bangladesh, how will China react? 

I think that China knows that it has certain comparative advantages that other countries are not able to match up with. When it comes to infrastructure assistance, for example, this is something that China is able to provide very effectively and I think it knows that even if the US is going to be picking up its engagement with Bangladesh on a number of levels, China still has that niche advantage, so to speak. 

But I don't necessarily agree that what's happening in US-Bangladesh relations is some type of reset, that the US is stepping up its game wanting to engage more with Bangladesh. I think that for quite a few years, the US has been very engaged in Bangladesh. It's a top trade partner, it's a top investor, it's a top source of FDI, American companies are some of the most active in Bangladesh and the US has long been a top donor to Bangladesh on issues ranging from public health to support for Rohingya refugees. 

And that's not something that deterred China in a big way. And I think the messaging from US officials in recent days to me, is signalling that the US wants to double down on the development side of the cooperation with Bangladesh, and that includes helping with this reform process that the interim government wants to take through. So I don't necessarily think Beijing sees any of that as a threat to its interests. 

Beijing has continued to be active in its presence, providing the types of cooperation that other countries don't provide. Not to mention, I do think that Beijing is poised to enjoy a special opportunity with this new government, just because the new government is not going to let India be such a big factor in terms of how it engages in its relationship with China. So that's just going to help Beijing in the end. 

Will the US cooperation sustain and continue with the next government(s) or is it a special treat to Dr Yunus, who has good friends in the West?

Absolutely, Dr Yunus is the key factor. I mean, it's very clear that the US and many of its Western partners are very comfortable engaging with Dr Yunus. I mean, he's someone who is so well known and respected across much of the world, particularly in the West. 

But you know, I think that the US doesn't only look at the relationship through the lens of Yunus. It looks at it through the lens of the broader goals that this interim government is looking to pursue. And I think that the US is genuinely supportive of the ideas that the interim government wants to implement, particularly in terms of institutional reforms. So, yeah, having Yunus at the top certainly helps. 

I think that the US sees a fresh opportunity to engage and, you know, the fact that you have an interim government that appears to be quite keen to engage with the US on many levels, not that the Hasina government was not willing to engage, it was, as I said before, you had significant levels of cooperation across the board — economic, commercial, development, strategic and so on. 

However, that relationship was encumbered by certain grievances that the Hasina government harboured toward the US and suspicions of US policies; you don't have that with this interim government, which strikes me as one that is very committed to working with the US and its Western partners. And I think that's something that obviously will be noted and appreciated in Washington. 

On the Rohingya issue, what do you think the US can do other than provide more support for the Rohingya intervention that it has been giving for years? Last week you wrote on Foreign Policy that third-party resettlement won't be easy either.

Yeah, I think that the easy part is providing assistance to support those refugees who are in Bangladesh now. The US has done that, and other donors have done that. I think it's very clear that the interim government is concerned by the fact that you have these new influxes of Rohingya that are coming into Bangladesh and concerned that Bangladesh doesn't have the capacity to support them for an extended period of time even if donor assistance continues to come in for that. 

I think the much more difficult ask that Bangladesh will likely make to the world is that other countries actually take in some Rohingya refugees. I've argued that this is where Yunus could be an asset in the sense that he has special relationships with many Western governments. And if there's one person who could make that pitch on a very difficult, delicate, sensitive issue, it would be, it would be this. But I also recognise that in the politics of the moment worldwide, you know, I think many countries, including in the West, would be a bit reluctant to take on refugees. 

But if you look at how this is played out, there are very few countries that have been willing to take in Rohingya outside of Bangladesh. I mean, most of them have done so — they're elsewhere in Asia — India, Malaysia, Indonesia. I think that the interim government will hope that the US will give a look toward the idea of taking in some members of the Rohingya refugee community, but I think in the immediate term the US would be committed to sustaining the levels of support for the Rohingya refugee community, and there's a new USAID deal that was concluded when the US delegation was in Dhaka. 

I'm not sure if that contains provisions for support for the Rohingya, but clearly this is an issue that has long been at the top of the agenda for humanitarian assistance officials in the US and I think that the support will be there. But it's just a much more difficult ask to hope that the US would actually be willing to be a destination for third party relocations for the Rohingya. 

So there's no question of repatriation in Myanmar?

Well, you know, certainly the previous government in Bangladesh was trying to work toward that, but I really don't know if the interim government would feel comfortable trying to negotiate the repatriation of the Rohingya back to Myanmar at a moment when the war is really intensifying and we're seeing fresh crackdowns and indeed fresh pogroms against the Rohingya community. I would be surprised if you have a push from the interim government to do that. 

But again, it's not a sustainable long-term policy for Bangladesh to continue to host what is close to one million refugees and the number could go up with more coming into Bangladesh over the last few months. Then again, I guess you can't rule anything out. I mean, there's been negotiations between the two governments for quite some time. But I just think that for this new government, the preference would be relocations to third countries as opposed to repatriations back to Myanmar. 

Do you think the renewed interest in Bangladesh will change if Donald Trump is reelected? 

It's hard to say. I think it's a question that applies to many current US policy interests. He is someone that I think would want to look at the relationship through the lens of, well, what does this bring to the United States — on a very transactional level. 

And I'm not sure how he would look at that. I think that he would value Bangladesh as an important destination for investments, I think he would certainly understand the importance of engaging with Bangladesh just because you have so much US business interest in Bangladesh relative to other countries. I mean, Bangladesh doesn't have many large Western companies operating in Bangladesh, but of those that are there, many of them are American, quite frankly, including some energy companies. 

So I think if President Trump were to return, he would certainly recognise that and I think that in itself is a good reason for engagement with Bangladesh. I also think that the strategic components of the relationship would come into play if Trump were to return to the presidency, he would very much want to engage with those countries that would be committed to countering China. 

Bangladesh, of course, is a non-aligned country, it wants to balance its relations with China, the US, India and others. But I do think that he would be wedded to the idea that Bangladesh is a critical strategic partner just because of its location and the fact that it does have relations with a number of all of the key powers. But in terms of this idea of refashioning the relationship around development assistance, humanitarian assistance, and assistance for reforms I'm not sure there would be as much enthusiasm for it. 

What's your overall take on the recent trend of US engagement with Bangladesh? 

I actually think that we've seen a fair amount of continuity. I mean, if you go back to early this year after the election in Bangladesh, you had some very striking messaging from senior US officials, including President Biden, that it was essentially telegraphing this desire to reset the relationship. 

So if you wanted to talk about a reset, it would have been earlier this year, not over the last few days. You know, it's become quite clear that the Biden administration has wanted to move away from this very strong emphasis on values-based components of the relationship, not wanting to have democracy and rights issues at the forefront of the relationship. 

I mean it's still there; I think the administration still values the issue of rights — human rights, labour rights — it wants those issues to be front and centre of the relationship, but not to the detriment of other issues. And I think that the Biden administration after the election, which, by the US's own admission, was not free and fair wants to make this relationship more of a multifaceted one, where there's more of an emphasis on strategic cooperation, commercial cooperation and other issues like climate change collaborations, that type of thing. 

What we've seen with this recent visit of the delegation is that, even with the new interim government in place, the US wants to continue with that. And I think that the US might feel that there may be more opportunities with this interim government. You're not going to see, at least in the immediate term, tensions over the rights issues, over the issues of democracy. 

But I will say this: this could depend on the outcome of the US presidential election, but if we look down the road six months from now, a year from now, if there are fresh concerns about democracy in Bangladesh, and there may well be, I don't think the US would necessarily hold back from bringing those issues back to the forefront in a big way. 

I mean, one of the major reasons why you had tensions in the US-Bangladesh relationship over the last two years is that the US was really pushing Bangladesh hard on the issue of having to have a free and fair election. You know, the election is done with. We don't know when the next elections are going to be in Bangladesh, but once one is scheduled, then, you know, I think the US might be very comfortable, coming back to that position that had the importance of free and fair elections in Bangladesh. For whatever reason, the US has long made that a big issue in Bangladesh. 

So what I'm saying is that the nature of the relationship could change. I think for now it's continuing with this reset, which began soon after the January election. The focus is on pursuing a series of components of cooperation, not letting the rights and democracy issues dominate the relationship. But you know, things could certainly change further down the road.