Let us call this our America First lobby. This current has been appearing regularly in the media, in tune with the incessant visits by members of the US establishment.
The logic espoused is that nothing has been done regarding Rohingya repatriation for over five years. India and China have apparently sat on their hands.
Bangladesh is stifled by the forced embrace by the regional hegemon, India. Meanwhile, China has not pushed the Tatmadaw to settle the Rohingya problem.
Allegedly, the US is set to step up actions to pressure the generals of Myanmar to restore democracy and allow the Rohingyas to return.
Hence, the US offers Bangladesh some strategic autonomy from these two Asian giants, as well as relieving it of its burden on the Teknaf River.
What these people are saying is that Bangladesh should choose a distant sea power, with an alien culture, to that of neighbouring land power Asian states, with whom there have been centuries or millennia of trade and cultural inter-exchanges.
Many in the so-called Tri-state area of Dhaka, plugged into Americana, will recoil in horror and distaste at the very idea that the US is alien. They see the Chinese in that light instead. Geography, Asian history, even less so Pan-Asianism, are not popular subjects these days.
Is there a problem with India?
I do not need to explain the deep seated unease that India holds in the country. Think Poland vis a vis Russia.
With a smorgasbord of emotions, varying from hate to perhaps even love (once in a blue moon), this is a complex relationship.
While I don't by default start from an anti-Indian position, it is understandable to even the most blinkered of Indian diplomats, that Bangladesh seeks and deserves strategic autonomy. How could it not be thus?
Even more so, after a decade of rapid economic growth, which has enriched the elite beyond their wildest expectations.
In an environment of the Adani scandal, Dhaka needs Delhi for regional connectivity and economic integration.
But Bangladesh has been ill-served by unnecessary short-sighted Indian moves – not allowing an equitable share of water, nor unimpeded access to Bangladeshi manufacturers and exporters, and wildly overcharging for power.
Ask yourself this though: What would America do in any of these themes for Bangladesh?
Does anyone really believe they were thinking of Bangladesh, rather than India, when they brought Adani to heel?
Post- election, Dhaka needs an enhanced foreign policy establishment which, for once, engages in negotiation with Delhi from a position of strength, not fear, but among reasonably amicable neighbours. Let us tackle this another day.
Why unfriend China?
The influential segment of the elite who call for distance from the Dragon, should explain why.
Where is the China threat precisely? Why do they persist with the China debt problem thesis? Where are the 400 Chinese bases dotted around outside China itself?
Why does Taiwan on the South China Sea matter to the Bay of Bengal? Why does the Western narrative regarding Taipei dominate in Dhaka?
If China (and RCEP) are the biggest markets in the world, what on Earth does Bangladesh gain from eschewing engagement with the economic number one as of now.
Yes, in PPP terms, China's GDP is far ahead of the US already and the gap is growing daily.
What would America do in terms of infrastructure if the Chinese completely withdrew from the Bengali delta? Why is an admiral due in town any day now? Why is it always the military angle about dealing with “Chinese aggression”?
Why not America?
The short answer is that the US offers little in the way of infrastructural investment.
In terms of manufacturing and export-led development in new sectors (higher up the value chain), the US is simply uninterested.
They are currently sucking in factories from the rest of the world. Globalisation is over. Subsidised re-industrialization in America is back in vogue (courtesy of the Inflation Reduction Act).
The US will continue to purchase cheap textiles from Bangladesh, which, as I have pointed out constantly, offers a tempting lever to nudge Bangladesh.
Let's talk about the real issue here.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen at the State Department, in Washington, DC on April 4, 2022 AFPThe supporters of much greater American influence in Bangladesh claim that only Washington can solve the Rohingya tragedy.
But is it not obvious that the Pentagon and State Department see Myanmar as a weapon to destabilize China's southwest?
When gas pipelines to Germany can be blown up by you-know-who, then are the same planners also not looking at the Chinese pipeline from the Bay of Bengal to Yunnan?
Does anyone not realize we are in a hybrid war?
Do these people in Dhaka honestly think the US is going to escalate on behalf of the Rohingya or democracy? What fairy tale books have they been reading?
This decade is likely to see a clash with China. Myanmar is a potential soft belly. Increasing weapons deliveries (Ukraine 2.0) to ethnic armies and the NUG would serve the purpose of pressuring China.
Chaos on its borders and disruption of the corridor from Kyuakphu to Kunming would deny China access to the Indian Ocean, away from the Malaccan Straits.
We should give some credit to most pro-US lobbyists. They surely know all of this. They are not naïve, are they? So why do they do it? What explains their visceral hatred of China?
Essentially, it is the inculcation of ideas and prejudices imported from a Western narrative, which is alarmed and frankly freaking out about the rise of China.
This is not enough, though. A version of the Yellow Peril in the Bay of Bengal only goes so far.
The America First lobby believes that the US is still Number One and will remain top dog. They would not follow a loser.
This unshakable faith in the enduring power of America is what sustains them. They do not use PPP figures on GDP. Nominal GDP still shows the US as the largest economy, ahead of China.
They brush off suggestions that de-dollarization will really occur in the next decade or so. At best, they see that eventuality as something for 2071 not 2041, let alone 2031.
They believe that “Putin will get what he deserves” in Ukraine with a bloody defeat. They are certain that the US navy and air force will obliterate the Chinese military in a war over Taiwan. They still believe that US technological supremacy will last for the foreseeable future. Boy, are they going to be in for a shock.
They also highlight the fact that the US holds the largest stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) here at around 4 out of the 20 billion dollars.
Last summer, Foreign Minister Momen rightly chided Anthony Blinken, observing that 90% of US investment is stuck in the energy sector. The Americans have always seemed particularly keen to suck out the gas, but not much else in the country seems to interest them.
But when you look at the product of foreign investment, loans and projects – then the US contribution to Bangladeshi infrastructure is a shadow of China's ports, bridges and power plants and the tens of billions of dollars in commitment and implementation.
Which way the political structure leans to, under pressure from the America First lobby, is the topic of the day.
The finance minister's jaundiced comment, last year, about having to be aware of not falling into a (Chinese) debt trap was unfortunate, and clearly deliberate. So has been the managed slowdown in inward investment.
Setting back the country's development is not a sign of patriotism. More so because China accounts for only 6% of Bangladesh's total debt. If this is a Chinese debt trap, then best get a new calculator and set of glasses.
The elite has seen rich Europe succumb to US demands over Russia and the war, so the lobby wonders why not poor Bangladesh?
The answer is that Bangladesh, still being a Least Developed Country, cannot fritter away its last opportunity to escape poverty and climb the ladder of prosperity.
It cannot, in cavalier fashion, join in military adventurism because a hegemon from far, far away demands that we do.
Their interests are not our interests.
We should be particularly concerned they do not make Bangladesh a front-line state. That is the last thing the country needs, given its fraught internal political situation – with which things are inter-linked, of course.
The question I would ask the America First “lobby” is this: Where does pragmatism end and when does collaboration and betrayal begin?
