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The escape of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came as a bit of a surprise to the outside world.

In the past few weeks, demonstrations against the public service quota system in Bangladesh have intensified. Hasina initially hoped to use strong measures to calm the situation, but this did not produce good results and instead intensified the conflict.

The so-called "public office quota system" refers to the Bangladeshi law that stipulates that 30% of government positions will be allocated to the families of veterans of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence (the Third Indo-Pakistani War) - most of whom have close ties with Hasina's People's Alliance Party.

Young people in Bangladesh are very dissatisfied with this and have gradually changed from protesting policies to questioning the results of the election and demanding the resignation of Hasina, who has been in power for 15 consecutive years (20 years in total).

According to Bangladesh's Dawn newspaper, facing tremendous pressure, the military, which had been neutral, issued an ultimatum to Hasina, demanding her resignation.

The 76-year-old Hasina quickly accepted the request and fled the capital Dhaka with her sister on a military helicopter, traveling across India and reportedly heading to London.

As she flew to India, thousands of protesters stormed her official residence, the Dhaka People's House, looting and vandalizing, and the chaotic situation has not yet subsided.

At the same time, the military announced the formation of an interim government and promised to hold general elections as soon as possible.

Next, let us try to answer a few questions in this storm.

1. Who is Hasina?

Hasina is the daughter of Rahman, the "Father of the Nation" of Bangladesh. Her family has been in power in Bangladesh for a long time and has a sacred political aura and abundant political resources.

Hasina served as prime minister twice, from 1996 to 2001 and from 2009 to 2024, and during her tenure she promoted sustained economic growth in Bangladesh.

At the beginning of its independence, Bangladesh was classified as a least developed country by the United Nations and was also one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

After Hasina came to power for the second time, Bangladesh's economy entered the fast lane and has remained above 6% since 2011.

Hasina herself pays great attention to domestic livelihood issues. She feeds 170 million people with a tiny country. She is also very flexible in the diplomatic field and maintains good relations with India, China, the West and Islamic countries.

The protesters lay on the bed in Hasina's bedroom, which can only be described as slightly larger, but not luxurious in any way.

Protesters looted the Prime Minister's residence.

2. Why did Hasina flee to India?

Bangladesh and India have a very complicated relationship.

As we all know, Bangladesh is actually the original East Pakistan. During the third Indo-Pakistani war in 1971, India helped the independence faction of Bangladesh to successfully establish its country and dismembered Pakistan.

In the eyes of many Indians, Bangladesh's independence is basically equated with India's victory over Pakistan. Some Indian scholars even claim that "India created Bangladesh."

Because of this, India once tried to deeply interfere in Bangladesh’s internal affairs, and once considered sending civil servants to "manage" Bangladesh’s internal affairs.

This has aroused the resentment of Bangladeshi nationalists. Recently, a campaign of "boycott Indian goods" and "get out of India" broke out among the Bangladeshi people.

As a veteran politician from a political family, Hasina knows very well that she cannot offend a powerful neighbor. Therefore, during her tenure, she suppressed the "anti-India faction", adopted a "balanced diplomacy" strategy between China and India, and frequently visited New Delhi and Beijing one after the other.

In fact, just over a month ago, on June 21, Hasina visited India, becoming the first foreign leader to visit India since Modi started his third term.

As part of her balanced diplomacy, Hasina visited China again in early July so as not to offend either side.

Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Modi. After the riots, India paid close attention to the development of the situation and said it would provide Hasina with a safe passage.

3. The real reason why Hasina stepped down

The collapse of a regime is first and foremost a financial collapse.

State work is multifaceted if we look at it from a broad perspective; but to put it simply, it is nothing more than finance and economy, personnel organization, military affairs, diplomacy, ideology, etc.

Military diplomacy and ideology are mainly played by big countries. For most small and medium-sized countries, they simply do not have enough scientific and economic strength to build a decent army. Once troubled times come, they will become colonies or vassal states.

The remaining two major tasks are finance and economy and personnel organization. The former belongs to the step of "making the cake" and the latter belongs to the step of "dividing the cake".

If the skin is gone, where will the hair attach to?

From this perspective, the governments of most small and medium-sized countries only need to do one job - make money.

Since 2020, more and more countries in the global village have gone bankrupt and fallen into chaos, and the debt problem of developing countries has become a global problem.

Like Sri Lanka earlier, the scenario of public unrest and the prime minister's escape was almost exactly the same as that of Bangladesh; other countries such as Laos, Maldives, Egypt, Tunisia, Argentina, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. also have their own problems.

According to a report by Bangladesh Business Standard in April this year, the latest data from the Bangladesh Statistics Bureau showed that Bangladesh's economic growth slowed to 3.78% in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, the slowest growth in the past three quarters, and the export manufacturing industry, which is the mainstay of the economy, showed negative growth.

At the same time, rising utility costs caused by high inflation (the average monthly inflation rate is over 9%) have made Bangladeshi residents and businesses suffer, especially the costs related to electricity and natural gas, which hit new highs in the first half of the year.

Downtown Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Street scene in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Looking back at human history, the past half century has been a period of great development of world free trade.

In an open and free market environment, any country, region, enterprise or individual with a skill can reap huge rewards.

Middle Eastern countries get rich by exploiting oil, Sri Lanka makes money by developing tourism, the Netherlands can sell photolithography machines, and Australia can mine iron ore and sell milk powder...

Even if they have nothing at home, relying on cheap labor costs, countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia can engage in labor-intensive manufacturing and export to earn foreign exchange.

By leveraging its strengths and finding its correct position in the global industrial chain, a country can easily be drawn into the rolling tide of development and move towards its own era of happiness.

In the global division of labor, specific countries and individuals only need to do their own jobs well, and they can use apps developed by Silicon Valley engineers, wear cheap clothes produced by Vietnamese women workers, and drink pure natural milk from Australia...

Everything is so beautiful.

In this era, Western politicians realized that their world hegemony was at risk of being diluted by the wave of globalization. Especially under the impetus of the Russia-Ukraine war, the ship of globalization suddenly turned around.

At this moment, if Russia, which holds the two major trump cards of energy and food, is not too afraid of sanctions, then for a country like Bangladesh that relies heavily on international trade, let alone sanctions, the slight rise of trade protectionism will have a major impact on its economy.

According to the IMF's forecast, 70 countries may default on their debts in the next few years, and each of them may end up like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - with high inflation, fiscal collapse and political instability.

In other words, there is a possibility of chaos in more than one-third of the world's countries, which is bound to have a profound impact on the geopolitical landscape in the years to come.

The pitiful bones by the Wuding River are still the person in the spring girl’s dream.

It is true that chaos is a ladder, but for ordinary people, the collapse of order also means that winter is coming.