Originally posted in The Daily Star on 23 November 2025
Rethink strategy as global economic power shifts
Speakers urge policymakers at Bay of Bengal Conversation 2025
Bangladesh must rethink its place in a fast-changing global system where economic and strategic power is shifting towards the Global South, eminent economist Prof Rehman Sobhan said yesterday.
Speaking at the “Speed Talk” on the opening day of the Bay of Bengal Conversation 2025 in the afternoon, organised by the Centre for Governance Studies in the capital, he focused on the political economy of the changing international order and how Bangladesh should respond.
The three-day conference, themed “Rivals, Ruptures, and Realignments”, will continue until November 24. It brings together 200 speakers, 300 delegates and more than 1,000 participants from 85 countries.
Prof Sobhan recalled that in the 1970s, developing countries pushed for a new economic order to counter “the then-hegemonic influence of the North Atlantic powers”.
The aim, he said, was fairer access to trade, technology and capital, but little changed and Western dominance carried into the 21st century.
“We are living in a world now in which the balance of power is relocating itself towards the Global South, and within the Global South, to its epicentre within the Asian region — particularly in South, Southeast, and East Asia.”
He noted that while the United States still has the largest GDP in nominal terms, China is second and India is fast catching up. By purchasing power parity, China is already the largest economy and India the third.
“If you project forward to 2050, the available projections indicate that, even in nominal terms, China will be the largest global economy, India will be third, and interestingly, Indonesia will be the fourth largest economy in the world.”
These shifts, he said, result from changes in trade, capital flows and technology. China is now the world’s largest exporter, and East Asia as a region trades more than the European Union.
“China has now become the largest trading partner of East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Central Asia, Africa and [major countries in] Latin America.
“These are the emerging objective facts of the global system, which are increasingly defining relations.”
Prof Sobhan warned that Bangladesh’s continued focus on the US garment market and duty-free privileges in the European Union reflects “yesterday’s strategies”.
He said Bangladesh has duty-free access to India and China but has “neither diversified nor developed working arrangements” to enter their supply chains.
Calling on policymakers and the private sector to move beyond the “LDC cocoon”, he said, “If we want to reposition ourselves in the global system, we need to have smarter and more dynamic policymakers. We need to also have a much more adventurous and creative private sector….”
Earlier, at the inauguration, Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed said the July uprising did not seek to overturn the constitution but aimed to purify engagement with it by restoring transparency, accountability and responsiveness.
“The uprising forced Bangladesh to revisit the very grammar of its constitutional life, reminding every organ of the state that the rule of law is the moral architecture that secures legitimacy.”
He said the judiciary, as the only fully functioning constitutional organ during the transitional months, had to remain humble in its limits while ensuring that “no right is rendered illusory, no institution made captive, and no citizen abandoned”.
He added that last year’s structural initiatives were “constitutional correctives” aimed at strengthening judicial independence and balance.
Warning that reform is not guaranteed, he said future Supreme Court administrations may face a constitutional landscape different from today’s. “Despite its flaws and historical scars, the present constitution remains the judiciary’s only touchstone of legitimacy.”
Also at the inaugural session, Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain said Bangladesh chooses to be “an active, sovereign and responsible player” in a time of global realignment. “States may be tempted to pick sides, but Bangladesh should first pick the right course.
“We will engage robustly, speak firmly when needed, and partner productively always with an eye on national interest and regional stability.”
He highlighted the shifting power, fragmentation of stability, weaponisation of knowledge, economic realignment and climate, borders and security.
At the Speed Talk segment, economist Debapriya Bhattacharya said Bangladesh is now dealing with three objectives: justice, reforms and inclusion, and that reforms connect the other two.
Referring to the White Paper he led, he said governance trends created three narrow groups — politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats — who avoided competition and produced crony capitalism, kleptocracy and oligarchs.
Debapriya said Bangladesh must break this “anti-reform coalition”. “Designing reform is easy, but delivering reform is one of the toughest …. Reforms must be coherent, politically grounded and visible to citizens, and should continue beyond any single government.”
Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam said Bangladesh is not investing enough in knowledge.
“Our education system is really one of the worst that we have,” he said, adding that weak education and low research investment are holding the country back.
He warned that social media’s click-driven incentives reward content not based on facts. “There is almost a funding of hate, a funding of misleading information, and a funding of lies.”
He urged policymakers and leaders to save the country from “the danger of lies”.
Responding to a query at an earlier plenary session titled “Fractured Orders, Fluid Loyalties Power Politics in the Post-Alignment Age”, Maj Gen (retd) ANM Muniruzzaman, president of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, said India, as a friendly neighbour, should respect Bangladesh’s legal systems and return former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh, reports UNB.
“Hasina’s trial has gone through all international standards legal systems under which she was convicted. And that’s a legal system that should be respected by all our neighbours,” he said, adding that if that respect is upheld, then by all accounts, Hasina should be returned to Bangladesh.
He said Bangladesh and India have an extradition treaty and India is “almost legally bound” to send Hasina back under the treaty.
CGS President Zillur Rahman and Executive Director Parvez Karim Abbasi also spoke.
