The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Chief adviser of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus will visit China on March 26 for a bilateral meeting, the country’s newspaper Prothom Alo reported.
The Nobel laureate, who took over as an interim leader of Bangladesh after Sheikh Hasina’s exit, may meet Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing on March 28, diplomatic sources in Dhaka told the daily.
This will be Yunus’s first visit to China since his takeover on August 7, 2024.
According to the report, Yunus will first attend the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) conference in Hainan province on March 25. Zhang Jun, secretary general of the BFA, invited the chief adviser to attend the conference in China. Later, Chinese authorities proposed hosting Yunus in Beijing as well to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
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Once the itinerary and agenda is finalised, Yunus will travel to Beijing for high-level discussions with the Chinese president.
Meanwhile, New Delhi has been keeping a close watch on Dhaka’s increasing engagements with China and Pakistan. In the aftermath of Hasina’s ouster, India’s relations with Bangladesh have been shaky.
Just two days ago, India alleged at a United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva that a UN fact-finding report on Bangladesh had “mainstreamed” the concept of “revenge violence against minorities”.
Bangladesh was also one of the issues on the table when external affairs minister S. Jaishankar met with his UK counterpart David Lammy at Chevening House in Kent on March 5.
Notably, a 21-member Bangladeshi delegation of political leaders, civil society activists, academics and journalists ended their 10-day visit to China on Thursday, March 6. According to news agency PTI, the two sides called for closer ties as Beijing wooed the interim government in Dhaka with loan repayment extensions and duty free imports.