Yunus refers to India's northeast states in bid to lure China

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Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh's interim government, during his four-day China visit, recently made a pitch to Beijing that surprisingly included India's seven northeastern states. He said the seven states were landlocked, and China could use Bangladesh to make extensions.

While urging Beijing to establish an economic foothold in Bangladesh by leveraging its strategic position as the "only guardian of the ocean" in the region, Yunus said, "The seven states of India, the eastern part of India, are called the Seven Sisters. They are a landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean."

"So this opens up a huge possibility. This could be an extension of the Chinese economy," Yunus further said at a high-level roundtable discussion on 'sustainable infrastructure and energy' at Beijing's The Presidential hotel on Mar 28.

"That's an opportunity we should seize and implement. Nepal and Bhutan have unlimited hydropower, which is a blessing. We can bring it to our purpose. From Bangladesh, you can go anywhere you want. The ocean is our backyard," Yunus said in Beijing.

"We are the only guardian of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. This could be an extension of the Chinese economy. Build things, produce things, market things, bring things to China, bring it out to the rest of the world," Yunus added.