Introduction to Bangladesh-China Connectivity

Bangladesh-China’s connectivity could be traced back as early as the fifth century when Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian started his journey towards the Indian subcontinent in 390 AD, including parts of Bengal during the Gupta Empire. According to historical records, Bengali scholar Atisha Dipankar (982–1054 AD) played a pioneering role in forging and promoting Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in China’s Tibetan region during the eleventh century. Chinese admiral Zheng He (1371–1413 AD) during China’s Ming dynasty sailed his fleet across the Bay of Bengal and landed in Chittagong port a few times. Ma Huan (1380–1460 AD), an associate of Zheng He provided a detailed description of the livelihood of Bengal in his account based on his journey across Chittagong and Sonar Gong. The first Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941 AD) made three visits to China in the 1920s and was widely popular among Chinese literary fans. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who later became the Father of the Nation in Bangladesh, also visited China in 1952 as part of the East Bengal delegate to the Peace Conference of the Asian and Pacific Region held in Beijing. Today, China has become one of the largest trading partners of Bangladesh. Since China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the bilateral cooperation and cultural connectivity between the two nations have reached new heights. This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the connectivity between the two regions at different points in history and the key features. This chapter argues that the connectivity between the China and Bengal regions (today’s Bangladesh, West Bengal, and the Northeastern part of India) is driven by different factors and interest in various points of the historical past to date. The final section of this chapter discusses the key theme of the book, various sections, and the chapters’ outline.