The comments that Bangladesh Foreign Minister, Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen made referring to the Indo-Bangladesh relations centering on the Indian contribution in 1971 seem to be an impractical emotional myth.
He made such comments on August 8 while talking with the local reporters after laying a wreath at the Mujib Nagar Memorial of Bangladesh.
A BJP-leaned Indian media outlet named Outlook quoted Momen as saying, “Our ties with India are historic…rock-solid; it is a blood relation. …. nothing can hinder this (Bangladesh-India) relation.”
The half-century of the Indo-Bangladesh relations justify Momen’s comments as impractical, even untrue. Diplomatic relation is not a rock. It is always changeable. It is not eternal and permanent or static, rather dynamic. Even a rock can be breakable. Helping a country to liberate it does not mean that the relations between the two countries will always remain sweet and never cede. It depends on the cooperator and how it behaves with the receiver. If the blood relations among the siblings become sour owing to the disagreements over the sharing of their paternal assets, how can the relationship with a fake and false friend be branded as blood-bound?
Many countries, including the United States, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc., were liberated through bloody wars enjoying active external cooperation. The cooperators extended such support for their covert geo-strategic interest. But the relations with the cooperators became bitter, even inimical when they poised as a threat to the national interest of the receivers. No aided country allowed its cooperators to interfere with its internal or external affairs under the cover of any excuse. History repeated this reality over and over again.
Let us recall the liberation war of Vietnam and the Chinese cooperation in it. India helped Bangladesh only for nine months, but China helped Vietnam for about 25 years. Let’s see the pattern and volume of Chinese help in the Vietnam War of Liberation against France and the US, which also proves Indian assistance to Bangladesh as utterly insignificant.
In the early 1950s, the Vietnamese Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh avidly sought advice and weapons from China. China sent its civil and Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG) to assist the Vietnamese forces. They trained the Vietnamese. Between April and September of 1950, China sent to Vietnam 14,000 rifles and pistols, 1,700 machine guns and recoilless rifles, 150 mortars, 60 artillery pieces and 300 bazookas, as well as ammunition, medicine, communications materials, clothes and 2,800 tons of food.
China helped Vietnam to relieve famine, rebuild the transportation systems, revive agriculture, reconstruct the urban economy, and improve the armed forces. Peking (now Beijing) agreed to provide rice and sent a team of economic advisers and experts to North Vietnam. In December of 1954 China sent more than 2,000 railroad workers to the Viet to repair railway lines, roads, and bridges. During Ho Chi Minh’s official visit to China in 1955, Beijing agreed to provide a grant of $200 million to be used to build various projects.
According to Chinese sources, during the 1956–63 period, China’s military aid to Vietnam totaled billions. China’s arms shipments to Vietnam included 270,000 guns, over 10,000 pieces of artillery, 200 million bullets of different types, 2.02 million artillery shells, 15,00 wire transmitters, 5,000 radio transmitters, over 1,000 trucks, 15 planes 28 naval vessels and 1.18 million sets of military uniforms. (China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964–69, The China Quarterly, 142: 356–387).
Between 1964 to 1975, China provided 1,922,897 guns; 64,529 artilleries; 1,048,207,000 bullets; 17,074 000 artillery shells; 30,808 radio transmitters; 48,922 telephones, 560 tanks and 164 planes.
Between June 1965 and March 1968, over 320,000 Chinese troops were in North Vietnam. In 1967, their number was 170,000. Under an agreement, China sent 5,670 sets of uniforms, 5,670 pairs of shoes, 567 tons of rice, 20.7 tons of salt, 55.2 tons of meat, 20.7 tons of fish, 20.7 tons of sesame and peanuts, 20.7 tons of beans, 20.7 tons of lard, 6.9 tons of soy sauce, 20,7 tons of white sugar, 8,000 toothbrushes, 11,100 tubes of toothpaste, 35,300 bars of soap, and 109,000 cases of cigarettes. In total, the agreement included 687 different items, covering goods like table tennis balls, volleyballs, harmonicas, playing cards, pins, fountain pen ink, sewing needle, and vegetable seeds. 1,100 soldiers Chinese were killed and 4,200 wounded in Vietnam War with the US.
In 1965, Beijing sent several thousand engineering troops into North Vietnam to assist in building and repairing roads, railways, airstrips and critical defense infrastructure. Between 1965 and 1971, more than 320,000 Chinese troops were deployed in North Vietnam. The peak year was in 1967, when there were around 170,000 Chinese in the communist state.
An estimated 1,000 Chinese were killed in the North in the late 1960s. Beijing also supplied Hanoi with large amounts of military equipment, including trucks, tanks and artillery.(https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/chinese-and-soviet-involvement/)
The Washington Post added that China sent 320,000 combat troops to Vietnam to fight against U.S. forces and their South Vietnamese allies. In a report monitored in Hong Kong, the semi-official China News Service said China sent the soldiers to Vietnam during the 1960s and spent over $20 billion to support Hanoi’s regular North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerrilla units.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/05/17/china-admits-combat-in-vietnam-war/6b9cb8a4-4d18-48bf-80d2-bea80f64057c/)
If one looks at the contributions of China in liberating Vietnam, India’s contribution to liberating Bangladesh seems to be insignificant. No Vietnamese leader ever flattered China or claimed “Sino-Vietnamese relation is blood-ties.”
I wrote earlier that no bilateral relation is static, rather dynamic and changeable, suiting the interests of the concerned countries. Foreign analysts once described the Chinese and Vietnamese relations as being “as close as lips and teeth.” The current Sino-Vietnamese relationship is totally opposite to that proverb-like comment.
But that relation passed away due to the tussle of national interests of both the countries. This is the reality, something the Bangladeshi leadership failed to peruse and follow for their petty personal interests.
The Vietnamese leaders, in dealing with their Chinese counterparts, upheld their national interest above their personal friendship with China. Small Vietnam dared to face giant China for the national cause. Vietnam, to contain Chinese influence, developed a friendship with the US, the country that ransacked and devastated it for 25 years. Vietnam forgot that America killed its people, raped its girls and women, converted many of them to Christianity, destroyed its infrastructures and economy. Still, Vietnam welcomed the US, forgetting the Chinese friendship and contribution.
This narrative categorically shows how national interest gets priority over the friendship and contribution that were once extremely essential for Vietnam. Bangladeshi leadership should learn a lesson from Vietnam, not from India. Diplomatic policy or relations are of kind chess game that need to be played with prudence and dexterity.
If one evaluates the 50 year records of India’s atrocities, exploitation and deception in Bangladesh, its contribution of 1971 will appear before him as an instrument to squeeze, dominate, subjugate, and even occupy Bangladesh. India’s ugly looting in Bangladesh just since December 16, 1971 portrayed India as a looter and an extortionate in the memory and psyche of the Bangladeshis. India is aware of how the Bangladeshis portray India and their extent of hatred, despise, distraction and disgrace against India. Therefore, Momen’s comments neither ventilate nor represent the psyche of the Bangladeshis. Very frequently, he makes irresponsible and childish comments that undermine the status and prestige of Bangladesh as an independent sovereign country.
The narrative of 1971 is no more effective. Other than some mercenaries and agents, Bangladeshis in general treat India as an enemy country. They brand Momen’s theory of blood-tie as a tie of slavery. India is not a friend of Bangladesh, rather a foe and grabber.
*Mohammad Zainal Abedin is a New York-based Bangladesh-origin journalist and researcher.
August 23, 2020
