Walk through almost any corner of Bangladesh today – from a remote riverside village in the Sundarbans to the busy docks of Chattogram – and you are sure to find concrete, steel, power cables or classrooms that whisper a story of China’s long-standing partnership with this land. Maybe it’s a bridge you drive across every day, a tunnel you pass under, a power plant that hums at night, or a hospital wing named “China Aid.” These are more than monuments; they are pulse-points in a friendship that began in 1975 and now courses through every province, every institution, every opportunity.
What makes this friendship stand out is its visibility – the people of Bangladesh don’t have to read treaties to understand China’s role. They see the bridge, they cross the road, they get electricity, health care, educational opportunities. These are real, lived changes. And underneath many of these, Chinese finance, construction firms, or shared expertise have played central roles.

Bridging distances: Structures that connect people and possibilities

One of the most striking aspects of this partnership is infrastructure. Bridges, tunnels, and highways have not just altered the landscape – they have reshaped how communities interact, trade, and grow. Take the Karnaphuli Tunnel in Chattogram: walking or driving through it, you feel a mix of awe and relief. For a truck driver transporting goods across the city, this tunnel cuts hours off the journey; for a family visiting relatives on the other side of the river, it turns a day-long trip into a quick ride. Constructed by China Communications Construction Company and partially funded by Exim Bank of China, it is South Asia’s first underwater road tunnel, 3.32 km beneath the river, 9.39 km including approaches – a marvel that locals now take for granted.

Then there’s the Padma Multipurpose Bridge.A small trader from Madaripur said that before the bridge, taking vegetables to Dhaka markets meant waiting for ferries and risking spoilage. Now he can deliver produce within hours, earning more and wasting less – a human story behind the steel and trusses designed by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group. The bridge connects the capital region with the southwest, drastically cutting down on travel time and creating a unifying thread for communities once cut off from each other for a good part of the year.

Further upstream, the Lalon Shah Bridge over the Padma, also built with Chinese assistance, has eased the lives of the people in Pabna and Kushtia. Local farmers say now their crops get fresh to markets rather than wilt during the journey, and other parents can say their kids are finally going to schools that used to be too far from them. 

Then there is the Dhaka Bypass Expressway, in the process of coming into existence but today promising much. It is designed to unclog the capital's never-ending traffic jams. Constructed by a joint venture with Chinese companies like Sichuan Road and Bridge Group Co. at the helm, the expressway is expected to save hours of travel time and road cost for travelers and traders, unifying opportunities for districts that lie far from Dhaka or Chattogram.

Beyond cement and steel: Energy that powers lives

Infrastructure is one thing; power and clean energy are what make a nation thrive. China has collaborated with Bangladesh on multiple fronts here. The coal-fired Payra Power Plant in Patuakhali, a joint venture with Chinese companies, lights up homes, fuels factories, and keeps streetlamps burning in towns that used togo dark by sunset years back.

Meanwhile, projects such as the Cox’s Bazar wind power plant and the solar project in Mymensingh use Chinese technology to diversify Bangladesh’s energy mix, helping villages access electricity for the first time, powering schools, small businesses, and even refrigeration for medicines.

Even coal projects now integrate modern pollution controls, and there is careful attention to balancing growth with environmental responsibility. The flexibility of Chinese engagement – from massive power plants to wind and solar farms – reflects a responsiveness to Bangladesh’s evolving needs.

Health, welfare, and human impact

While bridges and power plants are visible, health is felt most intimately. A mother in Gazipur, expecting her third child, might never notice the bilateral agreements behind the maternal health programme that helped train her midwife. But she feels the difference – safer deliveries, faster emergency response, lives saved.

A China-aided burn unit at Chittagong Medical College Hospital and the donation of nearly 20,000 dengue rapid test kits in mid-2025 illustrate the immediacy of this partnership.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Beijing provided vaccines – including donations of Sinopharm doses – and supplies that helped sustain Bangladesh’s national inoculation drive at critical moments, when other suppliers were constrained. These deliveries were politically salient and practically consequential for a country aiming to vaccinate tens of millions. 

Patients, doctors, and families experience these interventions firsthand – not as distant policy, but as lifesaving assistance in real time. The plan for a 1,000-bed modern hospital in Rangpur division exemplifies this approach, combining infrastructure, equipment, and training so that care reaches people outside Dhaka.

More recently, proposals and discussions between the two governments and state-affiliated institutions have envisaged deeper healthcare cooperation, including a large Bangladesh-China “friendship” hospital and clinical collaborations that would expand access to specialised treatment and training. Chinese medical teams have also been deployed on occasion for specific emergencies, signalling a willingness to offer direct people-to-people assistance. 

Learning, skills, culture: Investing in people

If infrastructure builds the body, education builds the mind – and China has invested quite deliberately here too.
China has invested in educational links that range from Confucius Institutes and Chinese language programmes at Bangladeshi universities to scholarships for Bangladeshi students under the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC) and other scholarship schemes. Over the past decade the number of Bangladeshi students who have benefited from full or partial scholarships to study in China has risen. 

In 2025-26, 80 students were awarded CGS scholarships. Nearly 600 applied. They are studying in top Chinese universities, in fields ranging from engineering, medicine, economics, science and Chinese language teaching. 
China has supported vocational and technical education (TVET) in Bangladesh. Chinese diplomatic voices and agency reports note that China remains committed to technical cooperation, including providing training programs in diverse specialties.

Cultural exchanges are increasing: Confucius Institutes, joint exhibitions, Mandarin classes, educational partnerships and shared festivals bring people together not only as beneficiaries of projects, but as friends, scholars, doctors, teachers. 
And as China’s Ambassador Yao Wen put it (in 2025), the focus is entering a new stage: people-centric cooperation, especially in education and public healthcare, because those are the areas that touch human welfare most directly. 

Cultural diplomacy and soft power

Beyond trade and construction projects, there exists a much quieter and barely visible yet most important cultural exchange between Bangladesh and China. Art and festivals, language competitions, academic exchanges, and artist or delegational visits slowly fertilise the field of understanding among the two peoples.

Small gestures really. This kind of cultural diplomacy builds trust at a time when perceptions seem to be more and more in flux. Trust opens up avenues not just in tourism and education but also in business and day-to-day interactions among ordinary citizens.

Defence and security: Strengthening strategic capacity

Partnership between the two countries also extends into defence – though less visible than bridges, roads or hospitals. Since the 1980s, China has been Bangladesh’s main supplier of military equipment, ranging from tanks and fighter jets to missile systems and radar technology. For Bangladesh, these are not simply purchases; they are part of a wider effort to safeguard its long coastline, protect its skies and strengthen its role in UN peacekeeping missions.

For example, in 2020 the Bangladesh Navy inducted two refurbished Chinese Type 053H3 frigates, which are now serving proudly as  BNS UmerFarooq and BNS Abu Ubaidah. Sailors describe how the ships, though transferred from abroad, gave them new confidence patrolling the Bay of Bengal. Similarly, the induction of Chinese-made K-8 jet trainers, known as the Hongdu JL-8, has enabled a generation of Bangladeshi pilots to train effectively at home.

Chinese support also extends beyond equipment. Training exchanges between the two militaries, officer education programmes in Chinese defence academies, and joint exercises have quietly expanded the operational experience of Bangladesh’s armed forces.

Defence ties, however, carry the same challenges as civilian projects: sustainability, cost, and overdependence. Bangladesh has been careful to diversify – working also with the US, Turkey, and European suppliers – but Chinese contributions remain central in maintaining an affordable, modern defence posture. 

For ordinary Bangladeshis, this partnership is not always visible, but it underpins something crucial: the assurance that trade routes, coastal towns, and even UN missions abroad remain secure.

Trade, investment and the economic balance

China is a major trading partner for Bangladesh. In recent years Beijing has emerged as the country’s single largest trading partner in terms of total trade volumes, and Chinese goods – from construction machinery and electronics to inputs for industry – are a staple of Bangladesh’s import basket. 

The commercial relationship is two-way, albeit imbalanced: Bangladesh exports readymade garments and agricultural products to China, while imports from China remain considerably larger in value. This trade relation provides the raw materials for the modern Bangladeshi industry and also encourages the rising consumer market, whereas Chinese FDI and contracting firms are also given much room in physical and industrial infrastructure.

Policymakers in Dhaka have looked into managing this trade phenomenon: export diversification, inviting Chinese manufacturers to set up in Bangladesh, and negotiating terms of financing so that these projects are under lower borrowing rates. 

Preferential trade arrangements and investment protections for China have also figured largely in recent diplomatic parleys, being a shared concern alongside the promotion of economic integration and fiscal prudence.

The human story: Beyond statistics

If we step back from contracts, loans and project names, the most persuasive evidence of a trusted friendship is often small and human. A student who received a Chinese government scholarship and now teaches at a Bangladeshi university; a commuter who spends less time stuck in traffic because a metro line reduced congestion; a rural village where a “Friendship Bridge” now shortens market journeys by hours; a patient who benefitted from a donated vaccine shipment – these are lived outcomes that shape individual futures and national options. 

The physical markers – bridges, rails, ports – are therefore also social markers: they are testimonies to a relationship that has produced measurable improvements in mobility, education and health for many Bangladeshis.

Challenges, limits, and the shaping of a balanced partnership

It would be naïve to pretend everything has been perfect. Loans have costs; environmental sustainability is a concern; local capacity sometimes lags behind the pace of incoming technology; managing debt and ensuring equitable benefit for all regions are real policy challenges. Yet Bangladesh has often shown a pattern of pragmatism: insisting on concessional terms, environmental safeguards, local content, and ensuring that projects actually benefit average citizens rather than just the elites.

For example, now some Chinese power plants are fitted with pollution-control technologies; wind and solar projects are considered to compensate for the environmental costs of coal; healthcare projects built with Chinese aid often train Chinese medical staff; scholarships in fact do not simply send students abroad but also work to encourage their return and the local application of their skills.

Also, Bangladesh’s foreign policy remains diversified. Alongside China, it works with India, Japan, Western donors, multilateral institutions. That diversification helps it retain leverage in negotiations, maintain better loan terms and guard against overdependence.

Why this relationship matters now more than ever

Bangladesh stands at a critical juncture. The garment export industry of the country, already a global heavyweight, must move into higher-value products.The increasingly urbanised cities of the country strain under traffic, pollution, infrastructure bottlenecks.Climate change threatens both coasts and agricultural hinterlands. At the same time, health crises, pandemics, epidemics remain dangers. In all these domains, infrastructure alone won’t suffice. What matters is coherence: electricity where people live, hospitals where people die, railway and road links that make markets reachable, education that changes livelihood options.

In that context, China emerges not just as source of funds or engineering capability, but as a partner with tested delivery. Projects like Karnaphuli Tunnel, the Dhaka Bypass Expressway, the Payra power plant, the solar and wind initiatives show that Chinese firms can deliver large, complex infrastructure. Simultaneously, cooperation in health, education, social welfare build goodwill and improve human potential.

If friendship were measured in treaties, China and Bangladesh have had many. But the truest proof is in the steel of bridges, the whirr of generators, the classrooms where students study, the hospital wards where people heal. 

Since 1975, China has not only provided money and machinery but joined hands in education, health, transportation, power ‒ in ways that are visible to ordinary Bangladeshis every day.

The task for Bangladesh is to steer this relationship wisely: insist on transparency, terms that protect its fiscal health, environmental sustainability, local capacity building and ensuring that even the furthest villages benefit. If it does, then the next fifty years could build on this friendship and deliver not just infrastructure, but resilience, opportunity and shared prosperity.

M Munir Hossain is a journalist with the Daily Sun. Email: [email protected]