Sino-Bangla Relation During the Ilyas Shahi Rule (1342-1487)

Abstract

The systematic study of intercontinental relations between different counties with Bengal in the medieval history is comparatively recent in India and Bangladesh. It is now generally agreed that without a proper study of the local and regional history, no correct study of the national history is possible. Again, the local and regional history though undoubtedly a part of a national history has its own political, economic, social, cultural and religious characteristics. China-Bangladesh relations are in general regarded stable in the literature, and the causes of stability in bilateral relations are inadequately explained often by overemphasizing the geopolitics of bilateral relations. Nonetheless, the geo-economics of China-Bangladesh relations is as significant as the geopolitics of the relations for both the current state of affairs in bilateral relations and their future. This article focuses on Sino-Bangla relations during the Ilyas Shahi rule (1342-1487. Primarily from the geopolitical and geo-economical perspectives, it explores the implications of the political and economic relations for bilateral economic relations, in particular, between China and Bangladesh, and, for bilateral relations in general between the two states.