At a time when a contingent of US Special Forces soldiers are in the midst of a joint exercise with their Bangladesh Army and Air Force hosts, Principal Staff Officer in the Armed Forces Division, Lieutenant General S M Kamrul Hassan’s departure for Beijing on September 16 is being keenly observed by the Indian security establishment.
Lt Gen Hassan, whose last foreign visit was in January this year to Pakistan, left for Beijing via Guangzhou on a China Southern Airlines (Flight No. CZ-5016) on September 16, less than a week before 120 US Special Forces soldiers, including personnel from the Pacific Air Command arrived in Chittagong before proceeding to Cox’s Bazar for taking part in Operation Pacific Angel-25.
He will return to Dhaka on September 20, before the joint military exercise concludes.
The statement issued by Bangladesh’s Inter-Services Public Relations on September 14 clearly stated that the seven-day exercise would be conducted “under the direction of the Armed Forces Division and the overall management of the Bangladesh Air Force”.
It is in this context that Lt Gen Hassan’s visit to China to take part in the Beijing Xiangshan Forum-2025 convention (between September 17 and 19) has piqued the interest of the Indian security establishment.
Lt Gen Hassan’s China visit takes place in the backdrop of Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman’s eight-day trip to Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
During his China visit, Gen Zaman toured some key weapons systems and unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturing units.
These visits were primarily at Beijing and Xiang where there are facilities of the state-owned Norinco Group, China Aerospace Long-March International Co Ltd and the Aisheng UAV Factory, which manufacture advanced weapons and ammunition.
While Lt Gen Hassan is not scheduled to speak at the three-day Beijing Xingshan Forum-2025 convention, he is expected to meet senior PLA officers.
It is, however, not known whether Lt Gen Hassan will take up sensitive issues of military hardware acquisitions, including surface-to-air-missiles and fighter aircraft for the Bangladesh Army and Air Force.
Participants from India and Pakistan are scheduled to take part in dialogues on a range of military, geopolitical and technological issues during the Xiangshan Forum meet.
Suffice it to say that Lt Gen Hassan, who fully backed a proposal related to the Rakhine “humanitarian corridor”, is understood to be not opposed to formally signing two key and sensitive defence-related agreements with the US military.
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The Bangladesh military and security establishment is keen that the military topbrass signs the General Security of Military Information Agreement and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement with the US to “modernise the armed forces, safeguard national sovereignty and establish a credible presence in the Indo-Pacific”.
A formal inking of the agreements has been hanging fire over the past two years even as there are some signs that since August 2024 the Bangladesh defence establishment has moved closer to signing the two pacts even as there are reservations in the upper echelons of the military considering apprehensions related to New Delhi.
