The Teesta Gambit: India, China And Bangladesh

Infrastructure has emerged as one of the defining instruments of geopolitical competition in the twenty-first century. Across South Asia, roads, ports, railways, and energy corridors are no longer viewed merely as engines of economic growth; they have become strategic assets capable of reshaping regional influence and security dynamics. Among these, the proposed Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project in Bangladesh exemplifies this shift. 

Illustration by The Geostrata

At the top of the Himalayas in Sikkim, from the waters of the Khangse and Zemu glaciers that feed the Tso Lhamo lake in a high plateau just north-east of the mighty Kanchenjunga, the Teesta springs to life. From source to mouth, the Teesta is approximately 414 kilometres, of which 150-odd are in Sikkim, 123 in West Bengal, and the remaining 140 or so in Bangladesh. Located in northern Bangladesh, close to India’s Siliguri Corridor, the narrow land bridge connecting the Indian mainland with its northeastern states, the project has inevitably drawn the attention of India’s strategic community.

The Teesta Valley project is more than a river restoration effort; it sits at the intersection of infrastructure and geopolitical competition. China’s involvement, consistent with its regional strategy, forces India to reassess the long-term strategic implications of such developments and highlights the challenge of balancing security interests while remaining a preferred regional partner.

CHINA'S DEEPENING FOOTPRINT IN BANGLADESH

China and India have been at a stalemate over a number of border disputes for decades. The recent visit of Bangladesh’s prime minister, Tarique Rahman, to Beijing from June 22 to 26, where he met Chinese president Xi Jinping, premier Li Qiang, and water resources minister Li Guoying, portrays an ideal cooperation that Bangladesh is planning for its Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project (TRCMRP). In March 2025, Bangladesh and China agreed to sign an implementation plan to exchange hydrological information for the Yarlung Zangbo-Jamuna river system. 

As Bangladesh further collaborates with Beijing on the TRCMP, serious concerns arise beyond the rhetoric of cooperation: China’s increasing engagement in deploying its experience, technology, and infrastructure in Bangladesh could make Dhaka dependent on external technologies and capabilities for river management, thereby making it vulnerable to further Chinese influence. Although India-Bangladesh relations have reached the “highest level of friendship” over the past decade and a half, the water-sharing disputes over the Teesta River have remained vexing issues. 

A PROMISE WITHOUT PAPER: THE VACUUM INDIA LEFT

Particularly, in 2011, New Delhi and Dhaka were keen on signing the Teesta water-sharing agreement, but India’s then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh moved away from it due to objections from West Bengal’s chief minister.  Since then, in almost every bilateral meeting with Bangladesh, India has committed to signing the deal, but to date, it has not been formalised. It can be observed that the delay caused by India regarding the Teesta River has served to heighten Dhaka’s impatience over the future of river-related initiatives and has created opportunities for Beijing to position itself as an alternative development partner.

The debate over China’s involvement in restoring Bangladesh’s rivers is more concerned with operational control than with ownership. Infrastructure built by foreign companies usually belongs to the owner’s country. However, when maintenance, software updates, technical expertise, and system integration depend on external countries, the question of control appears. Thus, to balance New Delhi and Beijing, Bangladesh will have to find the right balance between infrastructure construction and the retention of technological independence, transparency, and control. 

THE CORRIDOR'S PROXIMITY PROBLEM

The proposed construction zone lies far too close to India’s Siliguri Corridor, the land corridor connecting India’s eight northeast states to the rest of the country. Foreign contractors, operational units, and firms at such a close range to the corridor raise concerns regarding the security of India’s transit routes, as well as its impact on the northeast states, and the imminent concerns regarding national security. Even the prospect of Chinese companies, engineers, and technical personnel operating in that area for a significant period of time has added a new layer of complexity to the entire situation. 

With increasing Chinese involvement in hydro-engineering and terrain-surveying near the Siliguri Corridor. This provides sensitive topography access, data on movement corridors, and possibly in the future, control over water flows to the corporations and the units operating in the area, thus raising concerns for New Delhi. 

Moreover, the Teesta is an important upstream resource for India, and any basin-wide management intervention downstream (Dhaka) will certainly have implications for upstream flow dynamics, seasonal storage patterns, and long-term water release. Chinese presence near the Corridor could lead to gathering of intelligence on the movement of military forces across the region.

This would prove to be a serious setback in India’s ability to maintain operational secrecy in the area, especially amid our border tensions with China on LAC (Line of Actual Control). In fact, the talks of reviving the Lalmonirhat airbase, portrayed as being operationalized for “civilian aviation and aerospace education purposes” in northern Bangladesh, with close proximity to India, approximately 12-15 kilometers from India’s border, especially with Chinese officials visiting the airbase, raises new alarms for India. 

INDIA'S MOVE ON THE TABLE

India can use concrete levers, like fast-tracking its own Teesta-valley project offer. In 2024, before the political landscape had changed, New Delhi had decided to send a technical team to Bangladesh to examine the project, an initiative welcomed by Sheikh Hasina. She had argued that India controlled the upstream flow of the river and was in a better place to address water-management issues in the long term. While such arrangements seem to be in the past, owing to Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, this can still prove to be a meaningful start.

For instance, a water-sharing agreement between India and Bangladesh on an ad-hoc basis could suffice, but initiating dialogue may lead to domestic political resistance in West Bengal, where water remains a sensitive electoral issue, though even delaying it can give China ample time to enroot itself deeper into Bangladesh’s domestic infrastructure and politics.

Keeping these concerns in consideration, what is imperative at this stage is increasing security surveillance in the Siliguri corridor. A boost in surveillance, finding alternative transit routes, and keeping an eye on the personnel working in the designated areas of the project are, for the time being, the only viable solution from this standpoint. 

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BY PRANEEL

TEAM GEOSTRATA

info@thegeostrata.com