NEW DELHI: Amid strained relations with India, Bangladesh has formalised a government-to-government agreement with China under which the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) and state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) will jointly establish a UAV production and assembly facility in the country.
According to a statement on the BAF’s official Facebook page on Tuesday, the deal includes a full transfer of drone design and production technology, as well as training and capacity-building for Bangladeshi engineers. In its first phase, the facility will allow the BAF to produce and assemble medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs and vertical take-off-and-landing (VTOL) platforms.
The development comes against the backdrop of deteriorating India-Bangladesh ties, compounded by concerns in New Delhi over Dhaka’s growing defence engagement with China and Pakistan. Last week, Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen visited the long-delayed Teesta River development project near the "Chicken's Neck". Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has previously described India’s seven northeastern states as “landlocked” and positioned Bangladeshi ports as their “only guardian to the ocean.”
The strategic implications of the Bangladesh-China alignment are further underlined by Lieutenant General Rahul R. Singh’s comments in July last year, when he said that during Operation Sindoor, China had provided Pakistan with satellite-based intelligence on Indian deployments and operational vectors, with Pakistan acting as the “front face” of the operation.
The UAVs planned for production in Bangladesh are reported to be based on CETC’s ‘XY‑I’, a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) drone for reconnaissance, surveillance, border patrol, electronic warfare and communications. Reportedly, the UAV is heavily inspired by the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and claims to stay airborne for up to a day. The platform further also claims to support modular payloads, including electro-optical and infrared sensors, signals intelligence and jamming pods and weapons such as guided bombs or air-to-surface missiles.
In parallel, Dhaka has also expressed interest in acquiring up to 20 Chengdu J-10CE fighters in a deal valued at around USD 2.2 billion. Earlier this month, the air force chiefs of Pakistan and Bangladesh had also held talks on a potential sale of Sino-Pakistani JF-17 Thunder fighters.