CPC Minister Liu Haixing in Dhaka to Implement Tarique-Xi Understandings

Liu Haixing, minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), arrived in Dhaka on Tuesday night with the aim of implementing the decisions taken at the meeting between Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and Chinese President Xi Jinping and of deepening the political and economic relations between the two countries.

During the three-day visit, alongside strengthening China’s political engagement with the BNP and the government, issues of trade, investment, technology transfer, industrialisation and energy cooperation may receive importance.

Foreign ministry officials said Liu Haixing is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on Wednesday, as well as President Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

At noon the same day, he will speak at a roundtable on China-Bangladesh political cooperation at a hotel in the capital. At the same event, he will inaugurate the Bangladesh-China Centre for Party and State Governance Studies.

At the start of the day, his programme also includes visiting the graves of former president and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman and former prime minister Khaleda Zia to pay his respects.

Diplomatic sources say Liu Haixing is the first senior political leader from China to come to Dhaka since Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to China last June. Various agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed between the two countries during that visit, including an MoU on increasing cooperation between the BNP and the Communist Party of China.

The joint statement published after the summit between Tarique Rahman and Xi Jinping last June also gave importance to strengthening political relations between the two countries. In it, the two sides agreed to increase contact and cooperation among the governments, legislatures and political parties of the two countries, to continue high-level visits and to exchange experience on good governance.

The inauguration of the Bangladesh-China Centre for Party and State Governance Studies is one of the main programmes of the visit. Through this centre, an opportunity may be created for the political parties and related institutions of the two countries to exchange experience on running government, development, policymaking and good governance.

Since the fall of the Awami League government on 5 August 2024, new activity has been seen in China’s party diplomacy. At that time, Beijing increased contact with the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, the National Citizen Party (NCP) and various Islamist parties.

In August 2024, China’s ambassador to Dhaka, Yao Wen, met BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. In September, he met Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Shafiqur Rahman. In the same month, Chinese representatives also made contact with leaders of Islami Andolan Bangladesh.

Then, in November 2024, a delegation of leaders of several Islamist parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, visited China. Leaders of other Islamist parties alongside Jamaat took part in that visit at the invitation of the Communist Party of China. In April 2025, a delegation led by NCP convener Nahid Islam met representatives of the CPC’s International Department.

In July 2025, at an event in Dhaka, Chinese ambassador Yao Wen said the Communist Party of China is interested in increasing relations with all political parties in Bangladesh. He also mentioned that contact with the BNP and Jamaat had been obstructed over the past decade because of Awami League obstruction.

Party contact between China and Bangladesh is not new, however. Through Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Dhaka in October 2016, relations between the two countries were elevated to a strategic partnership of cooperation. Then, in March 2019, an MoU on increasing cooperation was signed between the Awami League and the CPC.

After the fall of the Awami League government, Beijing was also active in strengthening relations with the interim government. During Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’s visit to China in March 2025, he met Xi Jinping; trade, investment, infrastructure, energy and technology cooperation received importance there.