After Pak, It's Bangladesh, Myanmar:

China Plans New Corridor Bordering India

Report By Y-Trendz

New Delhi, July 3, 2026 — China's push to expand its connectivity footprint across South Asia appears to be entering a new phase, this time turning to India's eastern neighbourhood. Having invested heavily

for over a decade in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to India's west, Beijing is now exploring a proposed economic corridor that would link China to Bangladesh via Myanmar — a route that would open fresh access to the Bay of Bengal while conspicuously excluding India from the arrangement.

A Decade-Old Idea, Revived Without India

The proposal effectively revives the long-dormant Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, a concept first developed in 1999 under the BCIM Forum and formally endorsed by all four nations in Kunming in 2013. The original vision was expansive: a corridor spanning 1.65 million square kilometres and roughly 440 million people, linking Kunming in China's Yunnan province to Kolkata via Mandalay in Myanmar and Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh, combining road, rail, water and air links across the region.

That vision collapsed over the years. India gradually disengaged from BCIM amid strategic concerns tied to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and deteriorating Sino-Indian relations, and by 2019 the BCIM corridor had quietly vanished from the official list of BRI projects altogether. New Delhi has boycotted the BRI framework entirely since its inception, its objections sharpened in particular by CPEC's route through Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, which India considers a violation of its sovereignty.

Now, China appears to be pursuing a narrower version of the same idea — this time as a trilateral China-Myanmar-Bangladesh Economic Corridor, with India left out entirely. According to reports, the idea resurfaced during a recent visit by Bangladesh's political leadership to Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for deepening connectivity and economic cooperation between the two countries.

Bangladesh's Cautious Stance

Dhaka has so far stopped short of committing to the plan. Speaking at a press briefing on June 27, Bangladesh's Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman said the country was "currently examining" the proposal and had "taken no position" on it, adding that any overland connectivity through Myanmar would remain explicitly conditional on the restoration of peace and stability in Rakhine State. A Bangladeshi spokesperson was separately quoted saying discussions in Beijing had covered developing an economic corridor to enhance trade, investment and multimodal transport connectivity.

For Bangladesh, the strategic appeal is clear on paper: the corridor could position the country as the coastal terminus of a tri-nation transport network, modernise its ports, and feed into infrastructure projects such as the newly approved Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone in Anwara, Chattogram.

Myanmar: The Corridor's Biggest Obstacle

The route's greatest vulnerability lies in the country it must pass through. Myanmar has grown increasingly fragmented since its military seized power in 2021, and the instability shows no sign of resolving. According to a 2026 UN Security Council briefing — corroborated by BBC investigative mapping — Myanmar's ruling junta now controls only around one-fifth of the country's territory, while resistance forces and ethnic armies hold an estimated 42 percent, with the remainder contested or under active fighting. Rakhine State, a critical link in any prospective corridor route, has been particularly hard-hit by ongoing conflict, raising serious doubts about the safety and viability of large-scale cross-border infrastructure there.

Existing China-backed projects in Myanmar illustrate the difficulty. The Mandalay-Kyaukphyu railway, envisioned as a backbone link in China's existing Myanmar corridor, has advanced slowly since Myanmar and China signed a feasibility-study MoU back in 2021, with no public construction timetable announced since. Analysts note that, absent a significant improvement in Myanmar's security situation, the broader China-Myanmar-Bangladesh corridor remains largely conceptual rather than an active construction project.

Why It Matters for India

Even in its current, largely notional form, the proposal is being read in New Delhi as another sign of China's determination to expand its regional footprint along India's periphery. If eventually realised, the corridor would complement China's existing CPEC network to India's west and give Beijing an alternative land route to the Indian Ocean — reducing its dependence on the Malacca Strait, a critical and heavily trafficked global shipping chokepoint.

Analysts describe the move as part of a broader Chinese strategy to diversify its trade corridors and deepen its regional presence even as its relationship with India remains strained. Notably, the new proposal appears to sidestep the earlier four-nation format entirely, opting for a narrower trilateral framework that removes any pretext for Indian involvement — a marked departure from the original BCIM concept, which at least nominally included New Delhi as a full partner.

For now, with Bangladesh non-committal and Myanmar's internal conflict showing few signs of abating, the corridor remains more a statement of Chinese intent than a project with a firm construction timeline. But coming so soon after years of CPEC investment on India's western flank, its unveiling is likely to keep South Asia's connectivity map — and India's strategic calculus around it — under close watch in the months ahead.