China’s narrative and material backing of Pakistan throughout the current Kashmir crisis is worrying India’s overstretched military.
India and Pakistan are embroiled in hostilities in the aftermath of a terror attack on civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir on April 22. India’s military response is the result of Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex perpetrating terrorism and discord in Kashmir. With Operation Sindoor, India has set a new normal by expanding the scale of its response to terrorism. This includes moving beyond Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and terror camps and sites to striking targets closer to military installations across Pakistan.
This operation was undertaken to respond to Pakistan’s escalation on May 7, wherein it retaliated to India’s counterterrorism response by shelling border areas. India has also demonstrated a willingness and capability to undertake drone warfare, including the liberal use of loitering munition. On May 10, Pakistan claimed Indian missiles hit three air bases within the country. As the conflict continues, the international community has engaged with both India and Pakistan, seeking de-escalation. The path to a thaw, however, remains elusive.
India faces two overlapping security dilemmas—how to manage both the naval and continental theaters and how to face its two most troublesome neighbors—Pakistan and China. As a regional power, a strategic ally of Pakistan, and a threat actor for India, China is developing its own response to the hostilities. Chinese government officials and media are shaping rhetoric on what India-Pakistan tensions mean for each of the actors specifically and for regional stability in general. Beijing is also enhancing Pakistan’s defense arsenal. In this regard, it becomes vital to understand China’s position and role in the matter.
The China Angle
Under the fog of war, information is skewed, manipulated, and hidden. However, reporting indicates that Pakistan has deployed Chinese defense systems against India in the ongoing conflict. The arsenal likely includes the JF-17 and J-10 jet fighters as well as the HQ-9P air defense missile system. In general, China is one of Pakistan’s most vital economic partners, and China itself has continued to invest in Pakistan as a proxy against India. Beijing sustains support even though Islamabad cannot guarantee the security of Chinese assets, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure in Balochistan, from internal ethnic insurgencies.
In the current context, China’s posturing revolves around three dimensions. First is its implicit backing of Pakistan’s narrative. Though often framed as a commitment to regional peace and stability, China’s position is fundamentally aligned with Islamabad’s interests. Chinese narratives tend to amplify Pakistan’s viewpoints and policy positions, all the while casting doubt on New Delhi’s responses to terrorism by frequently characterizing India’s actions as irrational or excessive. Official Chinese coverage has referred to the Pahalgam attack as a “recent incident in Pahalgam of Indian-controlled Kashmir,” thus denying either terrorism or Pakistani involvement. This approach undermines India’s legitimate security concerns and bolsters Pakistan’s stance on the international stage.
Second, Beijing has sought to project itself as a potential “mediator” between India and Pakistan. However, this posture appears largely symbolic. The primary objective behind the pitch to mediate seems to be to internationalize the issue. This is something that Pakistan welcomes, but India resists.
That said, such statements from China should be taken with a grain of salt because if it were a serious proposal, it would have been discussed at the sidelines of the Fifteenth Meeting of the BRICS National Security Advisors in Rio de Janeiro on April 30, 2025. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also held a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Rio. Still, there was no mention of the India-Pakistan standoff, even though Pakistani defense minister Khwaja Asif, in an interview with RIA Novosti, had called on both Beijing and Moscow to establish an inquiry into the events of Pahalgam.
Third, Chinese voices acknowledge that the fallout from a hot war between India and Pakistan threatens Beijing’s broader regional interests. As long as India-Pakistan tensions remain under a certain threshold and the hyphenation of the two continues, China has leverage and opportunity. This is because an India that is concerned about dealing with the security threat from Pakistan, or one that is diverting resources and capital to its Western border, is an India that is distracted from the Chinese threat.
This threat is not only on the northern and eastern borders but also in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), restricting India’s focus to its continental theater and away from a naval one. So, a low-grade, localized conflict is not an adverse outcome from China’s perspective. The challenge is escalation to a full-scale war, which impacts its economic and security interests. This is evident from popular Chinese scholars such as Liu Zongyi arguing for the need to de-escalate. He reasons that if the conflict continues, India would apparently support separatist and extremist groups inside Pakistan and Afghanistan, which threaten internal security and disrupt the CPEC.
Consequently, opinion in China supports under-the-threshold methods of keeping the pressure on India alive. These range from seeking an “impartial investigation” to recounting India’s defeat in the 1962 war to amplifying Islamabad’s claims of low-lying flooding due to India’s manipulation of the Indus River’s waters. The latter claim is especially unsubstantiated, given that even if there are higher levels of water recorded in Jhelum in the past few days, it is likely a result of the seasonal melting of glaciers—something the Lahore Flood Forecasting Division itself warned residents of, on April 18. Hence, most of these methods largely carry narrative value and demonstrate China’s unwillingness to be deeply involved in India-Pakistan relations.
India’s Move
India’s main challenge is its two-front conundrum. With the Galwan Valley clashes in 2020, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) front with China re-ignited after nearly three decades of relative stability. At that juncture, India and Pakistan had concluded a ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control (LoC). And even though in October 2024, the disengagement process vis-à-vis the friction points along the LAC was completed, de-escalation and de-induction processes remain, and heavy troop and weaponry deployments continue.
Today, both the LAC and the LoC are active hotspots—a dire security situation that Indian armed forces have not witnessed in quite some time. It imposes on India the strategic imperative to optimize its troop and weapons systems deployment in a way that compromises its capability to respond in either theater.
India continues to be reliant on Western or Russian defense imports, even as its self-reliance campaign in the defense sector is progressing gradually. This means that if the conflict with Pakistan drags on, there will be a need to service and secure weapons systems and defense components that can match the strength of Chinese-made Pakistani equipment while also ensuring that both the LAC and the LoC have enough strength to deal with incursions and skirmishes on the ground. The latter should especially consider the intelligence that China continues to deploy heavy weaponry and around 50,000–60,000 troops along the LAC.
India must similarly counter Chinese claims and rhetoric on the international stage. It must make the case that India has a legitimate right to respond to terrorism, and its goal is to end the export of terror by Pakistan. Responsible international actors must understand that there must be zero tolerance for terrorism.
Furthermore, since it is not in Beijing’s interests to see the tensions escalate to a hot war, it is important to take note of how Chinese analysts are shaping the public and policymakers’ opinions. Are they disincentivizing India from retaliating to a Pakistani counter-attack, or are they confident in Islamabad’s capabilities? Are they suggesting that China leverage deployment at the LAC to pressure India’s troop presence, which is presently divided between the LAC and the LoC? These are pertinent questions on which India must deliberate.
About the Author: Anushka Saxena
Anushka Saxena is a staff research analyst for the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru, India. Her research focuses on the Chinese military and India’s foreign policy. Follow her on X: @SaxenaAnushka_.
Image: WeChitra / Shutterstock.com.
