Nearly six months have passed since one of the most momentous political upheavals in Bangladesh’s contemporary history resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government in August 2024. The two-month-long protest movement precipitating this seismic shift attracted pronounced support from regional actors such as Pakistan and China, as well as from several Western states.

While the geostrategic imperatives of Islamabad and Beijing, anchored in their ambitions to reconfigure Dhaka’s regional alignments away from New Delhi, are extensively documented, Western support was predominantly articulated within the normative framework of restoring democracy and upholding human rights in Bangladesh.

However, the interim administration, under the leadership of Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, has increasingly exhibited authoritarian proclivities, an exclusionary stance toward minority groups, and a growing entrenchment of Islamist forces. Despite these developments casting doubt on the motives of this unelected regime, surprisingly, the Western powers, who actively criticised Sheikh Hasina’s government, have persisted with their vital unquestioned and uncritical support to the Yunus Administration, thereby exposing their so-called principled foreign policy commitments.

It may be recalled that the July 2024 uprising, initially spearheaded by students, emerged as a response to an array of domestic grievances as highlighted by demands for comprehensive institutional reforms, the enforcement of stringent anti-corruption measures, and broader governance accountability. Beyond these domestic concerns, many protestors also criticised Bangladesh’s foreign policy trajectory, particularly its (re)alignments within the regional matrix. As such, in the aftermath of this upheaval, the Yunus-led interim administration has pushed for a discernible break from the policy orientations of the previous Sheikh Hasina government.

On the external front, it is exemplified by an

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