In other words, foreign policy is pro-active and is ready ahead of time with policy options on what may occur on the regional and global scene and its impact on the country.

A country's foreign policy cannot be separated from its domestic policies, as both are the two sides of the same coin. Both aim to achieve improvement of quality of life for the people.

The foreign policy of a country has to take into account its geography, history, natural resources, size of population, stage of economic development, culture, and religion. Policymakers in Bangladesh naturally assess the country's strength and weakness, and opportunity for and threat to Bangladesh in the light of the hard realities.

There is a saying that foreign policy begins at the frontiers. Geography has placed Bangladesh with India and Myanmar as neighbours. Bangladesh cannot change this fact. Bangladesh is surrounded on three sides by India. It is a small size territory (4.38 per cent approximately of the size of India) with 140 million (about 12 per cent of India's population) people. Furthermore, India is a regional power and big powers have acknowledged it. Bangladesh has to live with this hard reality.

It is often said that Bangladesh should pursue an "independent" foreign policy. Independence in foreign policy is a misconceived term. No country can get rid of regional environment and limitations. The world is inter-dependent, inter-penetrated, and inter-connected, and inter-governmental organizations continue to play an increasing role in the international order. States are bound by rules and commitments made in the larger interest of global law and order.

Viewed from this perspective, sovereignty of states is not unfettered and is limited by rules of international law. For example, a state cannot perpetrate cruelties on its nationals in such a way as to deny their fundamental rights, and humanitarian intervention is legally permissible. The corollary of this doctrine is that no country can pursue an "independent" foreign policy in the inter-dependent world. What is possible is to pursue a policy to maintain political independence, free from foreign interference or intervention.

The term "national interest" is often used in international relations. It is a generic term and is variable. What constitutes "national interest" today may not remain permanent in future, depending on internal and external situations. No country is either a permanent friend or enemy and what is permanent is to advance its national interest. One of the pillars of national interests is to ensure that no country, especially its neighbour, remains unfriendly to Bangladesh.

No country is free from foreign manipulation or pressure. This is more so when a small country does not have the same security perception as that of a big neighbour. All countries have intelligence outfits and they are used among other things for espionage, sabotage, disinformation, subversion, and terrorist activities. Foreign influence is to be addressed with resources and counter-intelligence.

What Bangladesh can achieve and cannot achieve will have to be considered on an objective assessment of its geo-political factors. It is of no use to have an impractical or idealistic vision that cannot be implemented, given Bangladesh's constraints of resources, military and economic power, and its physical location on the eastern fringe of South Asia, bordering the northeastern states of India and Myanmar.

At the dawn of the 21st century, Bangladesh is confronted with the changing pattern of geo-political scenario, and some of these deserve mention:

1. India and Japan are being used by the US as counter-weight to contain China's dominance in the Asia Pacific region.
2. Indian Ocean is gradually getting militarised by many of its littoral states as part of their security. Many states have established military infrastructure projects that are intended for power projection.
3. Both China and India are not comfortable with the existence of only one superpower in international arena. They want a multi-polar world and may join with Russia and European Union, as a counterpoint to the US in the coming decades.
4. Although there is a rivalry, China and India are increasingly tied up as strategic partners in economic cooperative efforts. Both are hungry for energy and look out opportunities in hydrocarbons sector to meet their insatiable demands.
5. Both China and India are keen to integrate their economies with that of Asean. Their participation in the last December East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur demonstrates this fact.
6. Asean wants access to big markets of China and India.

Some fundamentals of foreign policy

Some of the fundamentals deserve mention as follows:

First, a region is constituted with group of states tied together with similar climate, history, culture and language. Geographical contiguity of states leads naturally to regional cooperation which constitutes one of the foundations of foreign policy.

Second, at the time of India's rise to industrial power, Bangladesh has to seriously examine whether it should be a strategic partner with India. The decision however depends on assessment of Bangladesh's gains and losses. This is a delicate task of balancing act for policy makers.

It is noted that the disparity in the size of economies of Bangladesh and India has implications for the distribution of gains on each country. One needs to consider the fact that Bangladesh may gain more than India in some area, while reverse may be the case in other area. It is the total gain that has to be assessed for Bangladesh.

The asymmetry in gains is nothing new between a small and big neighbour. There are many instances where a small neighbour has maintained cooperative and beneficial relations with its big neighbour (for instance, Switzerland and France; Czech Republic or Austria and Germany. Although such examples may not provide a neat formula for Bangladesh, it is necessary to examine and analyse what is the glue that binds cooperative bilateral relations between a small and a big neighbour in Europe.

Third, the game of blaming other countries for its failures and inactions is counter-productive and will not impress outside powers any more. Gone are the days when a weak country can put powerful countries against one another, for instance Afghanistan played US against Soviet Union during the Cold War period.

Fourth, as a self-respecting nation, Bangladesh has to take responsibility for its actions and failures within its borders. For instance, why hasn't Bangladesh taken steps to manage water resources projects within its borders? Why has the Ganges Barrage project, conceived in 1977 or the Farakka-Paksi-Mawa project, been gathering dust for so long?

Bangladesh has certain rights under international law on the utilization of waters of common rivers and to obtain those rights, Bangladesh has to develop its projects to assert its rights. It is of no use to accuse others for Bangladesh's failures in developing and implementing water resources projects.

Fifth, it is well understood that Bangladesh will continue to maintain friendly relations with Islamic countries, given the majority of the population is Muslim (88 per cent). However, Bangladesh's exports that go to Islamic countries constitute only 3.76 per cent in 2002-03. Apart from sentiments, trade is the glue that strengthens bilateral relations.

Other relevant questions are: does Bangladesh get more favourable treatment from Islamic countries than non-Muslim countries do? Do Bangladeshis working in the Islamic countries get fair and decent treatment from the authorities? Where do they invest their billions of petrodollars? How many heads of states of Islamic countries have visited Bangladesh during the last 34 years? (Saudi Arabia's King is expected to visit India in near future). Relationship is not a one-way street. It needs both sides to equally reciprocate to consolidate relations.

Sixth, economic globalization means speed and technology are the driving forces of economic growth, coupled with the gradual integration with global economy. Bangladesh being located as a bridge between India and Asean, needs to integrate its economy with that of India, Asean, and China. IT information technology needs to be vigorously improved and skilled manpower is to be developed on an emergency basis.

Seventh, an image of a country is comparable to reputation of an individual. It takes time to build reputation but it can be destroyed easily and quickly. Image of a country is ordinarily derived from interactions with government officials and civil society in various areas by foreign visitors, donors and foreign NGOs.

Positive image of Bangladesh can only be projected with good governance, transparency of decisions, genuine efforts to eliminate corruption and abolition, of bureaucratic red tapism (eg why are 38 signatures necessary to import items in Bangladesh while in Singapore only 2 signatures?), and separation of judiciary from executive. In addition, in recent years the rise of Islamic extremism has overshadowed whatever solid improvements on socio-economic sectors have been made during the last 15 years.

Eighth, in the days of advanced information technology, there is no room to hide facts and statistics from the outside world. Furthermore, the personnel of foreign resident diplomatic missions and international organisations in the country are not silent spectators. They write analytical reports to their authorities on the state of affairs in the country.

Whatever Bangladesh missions overseas do or say, they may not be credible to the outside because the picture on the ground does not tally with the sanitized version of the facts, dished through missions abroad. Such efforts degenerate into government propaganda and are self-defeating.

Ninth, as part of diplomacy, informal or Track II diplomacy seems to be the norm when issues or inter-state disputes are too politically sensitive for officials to negotiate. Track II dialogue consists of specialists or retired officials who are able to discuss candidly issues or disputes in their private capacities with a view to resolving them.

The function of Track II diplomacy is to bring out the essential points of a dispute in an objective manner. When the points are analysed, states may be able to see through much clearer the fundamental points of a dispute and it helps to come to terms with one another.

Track II diplomacy is not a substitute for negotiations at a governmental level but aims to supplement the efforts by the officials. It is hardly seen that Bangladesh has used Track II diplomacy to iron out differences or disputes with its neighbours.

Foreign policy does not confine itself to political and diplomatic relations with other countries. It covers the entire gamut of external relations in areas, such as trade, foreign aid, foreign direct investment, water resources management and exploitation of natural resources.

Despite improvement in socio-economic sectors in the country, Bangladesh continues to suffer a negative image internationally. This is primarily because of the current confrontational domestic politics in the country. Furthermore, neglect in creation of Ombudsman, ineffective anti-corruption machinery and lack of good governance only work to destroy some of the gloss over the social and economic gains in the country.

Bangladesh cannot ignore the emerging geo-political scenario and must be prepared to re-cast its foreign policy so as to be relevant and appropriate to meet the challenges.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.