Modi's Challenge: Beijing's Pakistan Support And The Future Of India-China Ties

News18

20-05-2025

Last Updated:
After the recent India-Pakistan conflict which saw the extensive use of Chinese weapon systems and jets attacking Indian soil, is there even a relationship left to label any more?
India & China – International relations and geopolitical experts will call them Strategic Competitors, and an emotionally charged monologue on TV will label them enemies. But after the recent India-Pakistan conflict which saw the extensive use of Chinese weapon systems and Chinese manufactured jets attacking Indian soil, is there even a relationship left to label any more?
It was no secret that China has been arming Pakistan for a long time now. But during the conflict, it went a step further, helping Pakistan diplomatically to secure IMF loans, and on the battlefield helped the terror-sponsoring state reorganise its radar and air defence systems to more effectively detect India's deployments of troops and weaponry.
These actions warrant a re-orientation of India-China relations which had been relatively thawing. China's role in enabling India's primary adversary is something that can set this already fractured relationship decades back. It hampers any genuine cooperation, and raises an important question: Can India and China truly build a stable relationship when one actively arms and diplomatically and militarily supports the other's main regional adversary?
A Strategic Enabler for Pakistan
The recent conflict between India and Pakistan exposed a dimension of the China-Pakistan relationship that extends beyond mere arms sales, raising profound questions for India's strategic calculus. According to an analysis from a research group under India's Ministry of Defence, China provided significant air defence and satellite support to Pakistan during the hostilities in May 2025. This assessment, offered by the director general of the Centre For Joint Warfare Studies, suggests Beijing was more directly involved than previously understood.
For New Delhi, it just cements the 'two-front situation" that leading experts have always talked about. This means planning for any future conflict with Pakistan must now explicitly factor in Chinese assistance. The Indian military assessment that anything currently available to China could be with Pakistan tomorrow underscores the deep erosion of trust this perceived enablement has caused.
Undermining Diplomatic Thaw
China's active support for Pakistan during a period of conflict starkly contrasts with the recent, albeit limited, diplomatic thaw between Beijing and New Delhi. Following the October 2024 border agreement, which facilitated the first meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping since 2019, there had been a notable increase in diplomatic engagement. This included subsequent meetings between foreign ministers, defence ministers, national security advisors, and other diplomats from November 2024 through March 2025. Discussions touched upon resuming the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, data sharing on trans-border rivers, restoring direct flights, and media exchanges.
India articulated a desire for a 'more stable and predictable path,' while China expressed calls for the two nations to be 'partners rather than rivals.' India even lifted restrictions on several Chinese apps in February 2025, seen as a step towards improving ties.
However, China's actions in supporting Pakistan during the conflict severely undermines any actual progress made. Providing military intelligence and logistical aid to India's primary adversary is fundamentally incompatible with building a stable, predictable, or partnership-oriented relationship.
Moreover, Pakistan crediting China's J-10C jet in the Kashmir fight has visibly cast a shadow over the nascent detente. While Chinese officials condemned the April 22 attack in a call with India's National Security Advisor, the simultaneous reaffirmation of support for Pakistan's 'sovereignty and national dignity" in a call with the Pakistani Foreign Minister highlights the skewed game that China plays.
We could not expect trust from China, but as things were thought to be improving, this was a new low. The enablement of Pakistan by Beijing negates any positive steps taken in bilateral dialogue and underlines that the only way this relationship could be labelled is 'strategic rivalry."
The Economic Balancing Act
Adding complexity to this fraught relationship is the significant economic interdependence, particularly India's reliance on trade with China. China remains India's second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching US 131.84 billion in FY2024-25. Crucially, India faces a substantial and growing trade deficit reported at 99.2 billion. This economic reality presents a challenge for India, as maintaining its current high level of economic growth (projected at 6.5 per cent in 2025) and achieving its goal of becoming the world's third-largest economy by 2027, appears intertwined with its economic ties to China.
Despite strategic tensions driven by border issues and China's Pakistan connection, India once again finds itself in a delicate balancing act. Aiming to become an alternative manufacturing hub, reducing its dependency, issues like reliance on Chinese components for domestic manufacturing (highlighted by the Apple shift example) demonstrate the difficulty of decoupling quickly.
Furthermore, trade frictions, such as China's imposition of anti-dumping duties on Indian exports, continue to surface. This economic necessity compels engagement, but Chinese recklessness prevents this. It remains a transactional relationship, often fraught with underlying tension, rather than a cornerstone of a strategic partnership.
Re-evaluating the Foundation
The confluence of unresolved border disputes, growing economic asymmetry, and, most critically, China's strategic enablement of Pakistan forces a fundamental re-evaluation of the potential for a stable India-China relationship. The recent conflict underscores the paradoxical reality: attempts at diplomatic normalisation and tactical thaws are constantly undermined by China's deep-seated strategic alignment with a terror state, whose existence is now solely based, as it seems, is to continue asymmetrical warfare, while its citizens perish without food and even water.
India operates with the understanding that the China-Pakistan nexus is a critical variable in its security planning, necessitating a focus on managing a 'two-front situation. This is why, even with Chinese enablement, we managed to reach our objectives without taking any significant damage. This strategic imperative has driven India to strengthen partnerships with countries across the Indo-Pacific and Europe and solidify ties with strategic partners like the United States.
While diplomatic channels must remain open – particularly given the risks between two nuclear-armed neighbours – the recent events suggest that substantive progress towards genuine trust and cooperation is for naught.
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The outlook for India-China ties, rather than aiming for normalisation, may need to focus on managing competition, exploring limited confidence-building measures, and realistically managing expectations. The central question remains: can India build a predictable, stable relationship with a power that actively arms and strategically assists its most significant regional adversary? Probably not.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
India-China ties Pakistan-China Relations
Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
May 20, 2025, 11:30 IST
News opinion Modi's Challenge: Beijing's Pakistan Support And The Future Of India-China Ties | Opinion