Bangladesh Post-Hasina Defence Strategy: A Three-Track Shift
Three distinct but converging developments are on the public record. First, Bangladesh is reportedly negotiating its largest defence procurement in years. According to various reports, Dhaka is focusing on an advanced but unfinalized package of Chinese J-10 CE fighter jets, attack helicopters, and drones. On 4 August 2026, Bangladesh’s Armed Forces Division officially requested an increased budget authorization from its finance ministry. The indicated package includes 20 to 24 aircraft. Significantly, there is no J-10CE contract been reported to have been signed, nor is there an official confirmation of the unit count or the price mentioned.
Second, the joint agreement between Bangladesh Air Force with China Electronics Technology Group Corporation International signed in January 2026, has been initiated to increase the domestic capacity for the production and to assemble drones. This also includes a technology-transfer component, while a separate, Türkiye-backed UAV manufacturing facility was announced for Bogra in July 2026.
Lastly, Dhaka’s foreign ministry has stated, if invited, it would “positively consider” becoming a part of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, a mutual-defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan on 7 August 2026.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs acknowledging the statement, has cautiously insinuated at the security implications which the pact poses for New Delhi.
The Post-Interim Shift: Charting the Move from Yunus to Tarique Rahman
Context matters here more than usual. In August 2024, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government fell owing to a large student-led uprising. Bangladesh spent the next eighteen months under an interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus. On 12 February 2026, Dhaka held its first parliamentary election since the uprising.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, who is the son of former president Ziaur Rahman and former prime minister Khaleda Zia won by a landslide 209 of 300 declared seats on a 59.9 percent turnout.
This concluded the interim period with Rahman being sworn in as the eleventh prime minister of Bangladesh on 17 February 2026.
India sent Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri to the ceremony, and Birla held a courtesy call with the new prime minister afterward.
While the J-10CE talks and the China UAV cooperation agreement were initiated under the Yunus interim government following a March 2025 Beijing visit and the formation of an inter-ministerial committee that April, the procurement has been sped up under the newly elected government. It is ascertained that motivated by its own political mandate, the current Bangladeshi administration is actively pursuing a distinct foreign-policy identity away from the Awami League’s traditional alignment with India. This became pronounced with the mention of the Makkah Pact by Dhaka.
The Beijing Track: Upgrading from Procurement to Defence Industrial Partnership
China has been Bangladesh’s largest single arms supplier. However, the current development differs in kind from past hardware purchases. Bangladesh Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan has brought up the possibility of acquiring Chinese multirole combat aircraft and attack helicopters during a 2024 visit to China. This gained massive traction after Muhammad Yunus’s own visit to Beijing in March 2025, following which an eleven-member inter-ministerial committee, chaired by the air force chief, was formed to negotiate terms.
Information and Broadcasting Adviser to the Prime Minister, Zahed Ur Rahman, told reporters on 25 August 2026 that the J-10CE “performed very well” against the Rafale during the May 2025 Indo-Pakistan conflict and said it was now “established” that an Indian Rafale had been shot down by a Chinese-made J-10.
This statement can be deduced as Dhaka’s own framing rather than a settled fact. Evidently Pakistan has claimed such kills as expected, but India has not confirmed the loss of any Rafale to a J-10, and the claim remains independently unverified.
On the industrial side, the Bangladesh Air Force and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation International signed an agreement in January 2026 to establish a domestic UAV production and assembly facility, including technology transfer. Simultaneously, on 27 August 2026, 55 acres of a former textile mill site in Faujdarhat, Chattogram, was handed over to the Bangladesh Army for a new domestic weapons and ammunition production facility. The Bangladeshi army chief Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman told the handover ceremony that Bangladesh had “decided that whatever we fire, we will manufacture it ourselves,” arguing that import dependence was incompatible with fighting a war.
The Turkey Track: Drones, Bilateral Frameworks, and Border Precedents
According to reports, Dhaka has already fielded Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and has reportedly deployed them near the Indian border.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Dhaka in June 2026 and discussed forming a joint committee at the defence and foreign-ministerial level. In July 2026 Bangladesh announced plans for a Turkish-backed drone manufacturing facility in Bogra, alongside Faujdarhat, This clearly, highlights Dhaka’s ambition to build sovereign production capacity rather than simply diversify its import list.
The Mecca Question
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement has been informally branded the Makkah Defence Alliance post a 31 August 2026 meeting in Istanbul. It was signed on 7 August 2026 at Al-Safa Palace in Makkah by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It builds on a bilateral Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement from September 2025 and commits its signatories to treat an armed attack on any one member as an attack on all. The language Fidan has compared to NATO’s Article 5.
The pact’s institutional framework remains genuinely thin. The text is not made public and does not establish a joint command, no standing forces and no specified trigger mechanism. As a result, the practical deterrent value of the pact is not convincing. A permanent secretariat has been established in Riyadh, with its first secretary-general drawn from Pakistan. Furthermore, Fidan has said the alliance remains “open for the partnership and participation of any other country” in the region. It is also important to mention, that a related quadrilateral consultative mechanism, sometimes called the R-4 Group, already exists with Egypt alongside the three founding members Of the Mecca Agreement.
Bangladesh though not a member without a formal invitation has expressed its desire to join. A Bangladeshi foreign ministry source has indicated to Reuters that Saudi Arabia had extended an informal invitation, however this remains yet to be confirmed.
Strategic Inertia vs. Active Alarm
India’s public stance has been consistent and deliberately minimal. Asked repeatedly through August and September about Bangladesh’s stated openness to the Mecca pact, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has reiterated variations of a single formula that India “continues to closely follow developments” without issuing a formal objection or naming Bangladesh directly in most instances.
Dhaka University development-studies professor Asif Shahan has argued that several countries, India included, would simply “not be pleased” if Bangladesh joined an alliance built around Pakistan, given the risks to Bangladesh’s own export-dependent economy from any perceived strategic alignment against India.
Assessment
The reports highlight three distinct defence tracks in Bangladesh which must be analysed independently from Dhaka’s official narrative of “self-reliance.” The China track is the most subsequential, as a potential J-10CE fighter-jet purchase would deeply cement Beijing as the country’s dominant hardware supplier—though it remains a procurement decision rather than a formal alliance commitment. In comparison, the Turkey track is lesser in budget but happens to be already operational, with TB2 drones deployed near the Indian border. The Makkah track remains highly questionable, considering the non-binding openness to an invitation from a pact which Dhaka to yet to receive.
For New Delhi, the primary challenge is the overarching pattern. The current elected government in Dhaka is willing to openly engage India’s regional rivals rather than rely on quiet hedging. The question whether this signals a strategic shift or a negotiating tactic for leverage, or standard diversification remains unanswered at the moment.
More on Saudi-Pakistan Defence Pact:
THE 26TH SCO SUMMIT AT 25 YEARS: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/the-26-sco-summit-at-25-years/
Saudi–Pakistani Defence Pact: Operationalizing Hedging and Deterrence in 2026: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/saudi-pakistani-defence-pact-operationalizing-hedging-and-deterrence-in-2026/
Turkey Explores Joining Saudi–Pakistan Defence Pact: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/turkey-explored-joining-saudi-pakistan-defence-pact/
Saudi Arabia Blocks Pakistan’s $5.5 Billion African Arms Push in Major Strategic Shift: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/saudi-arabia-blocks-pakistans-5-5-billion-african-arms-push-in-major-strategic-shift/
Islamic Bomb and Islamic NATO: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/islamic-bomb-and-islamic-nato/
India China 25th SR Talks: https://www.thestrategicperspective.org/india-china-25-sr-talks/
