China’s quiet push to create a trilateral grouping with Pakistan and Bangladesh is part of a broader attempt to replace the defunct SAARC and reshape South Asia’s strategic map. According to strategic analyst Atul Aneja, this is not about development or cooperation—it’s a geopolitical contest aimed at displacing India from its civilisational sphere of influence.
The US exit from Afghanistan created a vacuum, allowing China to expand its footprint via Pakistan. Now, with the US attempting to re-engage Islamabad, China is doubling down—offering new alternatives like the trilateral arrangement to maintain dominance. For India, this triangulation with Bangladesh and Pakistan is deeply troubling, especially as Chinese and Pakistani influence grows in Dhaka. Aneja is blunt: “We’ve lost the plot there.”
He argues India failed to define and enforce its regional red lines, particularly in Bangladesh, a country born out of Indian military sacrifice. The emergence of a potentially hostile regime in Dhaka jeopardizes connectivity to the Northeast and threatens strategic investments in ports like Chittagong.
With Bangladesh slipping, Myanmar becomes critical. Aneja says India must actively engage the Myanmar military, which still holds decisive power despite plans for elections. Myanmar, historically non-aligned, has leaned on China and Russia due to Western sanctions, but is eager to deepen ties with India—something New Delhi must act on before Beijing fills the space.
India’s power projection has evolved. Military operations like Balakot and the more recent Operation Trident have shown India’s willingness to act. “We must use power judiciously, but unambiguously,” says Aneja. Soft power remains important, but India must rapidly build its economic and military heft to become a $10 trillion economy and secure its interests.
India must embrace its role as the region’s big brother—benign but assertive. The strategic landscape has shifted, and India can no longer afford to be reactive. “We’re in the game now,” says Aneja. “There’s no turning back.”
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
