Bangladesh joined China's Belt and Road Initiative on October 14, 2016, when President Xi Jinping signed the BRI Memorandum of Understanding during his Dhaka visit. The promise was large: approximately $40 billion in Chinese financing across infrastructure, energy, and connectivity projects, broken into $26 billion for independent projects and $14 billion for joint ventures. Ten years later, $4.45 billion has been disbursed across 35 projects, roughly 11 percent of the pledge.

The gap is real but not the whole story. The completed portfolio represents the most significant Chinese contribution to Bangladesh's infrastructure stock in the country's history. The Padma Bridge Rail Link connects Dhaka to Jashore across the Padma Multipurpose Bridge using $2.67 billion in China Exim Bank financing. The Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel under the Karnaphuli River at Chattogram opened in 2023 using approximately $1 billion in Chinese concessional credit. The Payra Thermal Power Plant (1,320 MW) was financed through a Bangladesh-China joint venture worth $1.37 billion. Friendship Bridges, the Chattogram-Cox's Bazar railway, and national data infrastructure round out a portfolio that has changed what Bangladesh can move and process.

The disbursement gap reflects a combination of project-readiness delays on the Bangladesh side, bureaucratic friction on both sides, and deliberate selectivity. When China proposed a deep-sea port at Sonadia, Bangladesh declined, recognising that the Japanese-backed Matarbari deep-sea port was already advancing and that Sonadia's location would put Chinese maritime infrastructure in a strategic position India would resist. That was a purposeful choice, not a bureaucratic failure.

The Debt Picture: China at 7 Percent

Bangladesh's government external debt stood at $77.28 billion as of June 30, 2025, at 18.99 percent of GDP, well within the 40 percent IMF threshold for low-income countries (ERD FY25 report). China holds approximately $7 billion of that stock, roughly 7 percent, making it the fourth-largest bilateral creditor. The World Bank holds $18.2 billion, the Asian Development Bank $13.3 billion, Japan $9.2 billion. Russia's $5.1 billion is dominated by the Rooppur nuclear plant loan.

This structure makes Bangladesh structurally different from Sri Lanka at the time of the 2017 Hambantota port transfer. Sri Lanka's Chinese debt was proportionately larger relative to a smaller, more distressed economy with critically strained foreign exchange reserves. China Merchants Port Holdings acquired a 70 percent stake and a 99-year lease on Hambantota International Port in December 2017 for $1.12 billion. Crucially, the lease was a voluntary debt-for-equity arrangement that Sri Lanka's government negotiated, not a contractual penalty clause in the original loan agreement. Bangladesh's Chinese debt-to-GDP ratio is under 2 percent.

That does not mean the Hambantota concern is irrelevant to Bangladesh. It is a forward-looking risk instrument, not a current-state descriptor. If Bangladesh's reserve position deteriorates under the Rooppur repayment schedule from 2028, if the taka depreciates sharply, and if Chinese credit expands further through Teesta and other projects, the vulnerability profile changes.

The Teesta Pivot

The Teesta Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project is now formally on Bangladesh's agenda under the BNP government. PowerChina (POWERCHINA) and the Bangladesh Water Development Board signed an MOU extension in January 2025 for a concept paper and feasibility study covering 102 kilometres of Teesta riverbank rehabilitation and dredging. Bangladesh has requested Tk 67 billion, approximately $550 million, as a Chinese concessional loan, with the government contributing from its own exchequer.

The BNP endorsement came at the highest level. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited Beijing from May 5 to 7, 2026, his first official visit to China and the BNP government's first senior diplomatic engagement with Beijing. The joint statement with Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed that China is willing to proceed with the Teesta project. Wang Yi described China's readiness to "promote alignment of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation" with Bangladesh's national development strategy, explicitly covering water conservancy (China MFA, May 7, 2026).

The geopolitical reading is not subtle. India has been unable to deliver a Teesta water-sharing agreement for 15 years, blocked since 2011 by West Bengal's domestic politics. Bangladesh is now using the Chinese hydraulic infrastructure offer as direct leverage on New Delhi. Chinese dam and dredging infrastructure on the Teesta would sit adjacent to the Siliguri Corridor, India's narrow land connection to its northeastern states. India objects on security grounds to Chinese presence on the Teesta; Bangladesh's BNP government is making India choose between delivering a water deal or accepting that China builds the alternative.

The Rooppur Shadow Is Russian, Not Chinese

The single most consequential debt item on Bangladesh's balance sheet is Rooppur, and it is Russian. The $11.38 billion state export credit from Russia, governed by the 2016 Intergovernmental Credit Agreement with Rosatom, begins principal repayment in September 2028 under Protocol-2 signed July 14, 2025. Thirty-eight semi-annual instalments of $189.67 million each produce approximately $379 million per year in principal obligations through 2047. First-year combined debt service (principal plus 3 percent interest on the outstanding balance) could reach $590 to $600 million.

This is critical context for the BRI brief. Bangladesh's debt sustainability conversation in 2026 is primarily a Rooppur-Russia story, not a BRI-China story. Rooppur principal alone is nearly equal to all of China's disbursed BRI financing ($4.45B total) in annual service payments over its 19-year repayment schedule. Any approved Teesta loan draw-downs would add Chinese obligations on top, creating a dual creditor hard-currency service peak in the early 2030s if both proceed on schedule.

What the BNP Government Is Doing

The BNP government's posture on China is best described as pragmatic rebalancing rather than a strategic pivot. Under Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, Bangladesh leaned toward India on the diplomatic spectrum while still accepting Chinese infrastructure financing. BNP's historical positioning was more sceptical of Chinese entanglement; its June 2025 delegation to Beijing indicated it would consider the Teesta offer positively if it came to power.

That calculation has now been confirmed in office. The May 2026 Khalilur Rahman visit produced commitments on Teesta and reaffirmed BRI cooperation across "economy and trade, investment, infrastructure, water conservancy, and people-to-people exchanges" (Wang Yi statement). The BNP government is not abandoning the India relationship, as evidenced by the April 8, 2026 Khalilur Rahman-Jaishankar meeting in New Delhi. It is running both tracks simultaneously, using China as a credible alternative on Teesta to extract Indian movement on water-sharing.

Risks and the Decade Ahead

The pledge-to-disbursement gap ($40B pledged, $4.45B disbursed) is partly a governance signal: Bangladesh has maintained more selectivity than some BRI recipients. But the next decade brings compounding pressures. If Teesta proceeds to disbursement, China's share of Bangladesh's external debt rises from 7 percent toward 8 to 10 percent. If Rooppur draws on reserves from 2028 and the taka comes under pressure, the reserve cushion for hard-currency debt service narrows. And the BNP government's willingness to pursue Chinese infrastructure on geopolitically sensitive terrain raises India's resistance to the entire bilateral relationship.

Bangladesh is not in a Sri Lanka-equivalent position today. But the Hambantota analogy is not simply wrong: it identifies a structural path that requires active management to avoid, not a current diagnosis. The critical policy variables are the pace of Teesta loan approval, the structure of any Teesta financing terms (grant vs. concessional loan vs. commercial), and whether Rooppur revenue from electricity tariffs begins to service the Russian debt before reserves are materially strained.