Chinese President Xi Jinping met Bangladesh leader Muhammad Yunus in Beijing on Friday, state media reported, as Dhaka's frosty relations with neighbouring India spur the administration to court new friends.
Yunus took charge of Bangladesh last August after the toppling of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi after a student-led uprising.
The 84-year-old Nobel laureate flew to Beijing on Wednesday and met with Xi on Friday, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported, without giving further details.
Yunus is expected to return to Bangladesh on Saturday after holding several other high-level meetings in the Chinese capital.
India was the biggest benefactor of Hasina's government, and her overthrow sent cross-border relations into a tailspin.
Dhaka's top foreign ministry bureaucrat said Tuesday that Bangladesh was "sending a message" with Yunus's choice to spend his first state visit in China.
Several agreements are expected to be signed on economic and technical assistance, cultural and sports cooperation, and media collaboration between the two countries, according to the Bangladeshi administration.
Talks are also expected to touch on Bangladesh's immense population of Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a violent military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in 2017.
China has acted as a mediator between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the past to broker the repatriation of the persecuted minority, although efforts stalled because of Myanmar's unwillingness to have them returned.
(AFP)
