A year since Operation Sindoor, the presumed depth of Sino-Pakistani military coordination appears more calibrated than integrated, prompting India to refine its two-front threat assessment
This article is part of the essay series: From Response to Reorientation: One Year of Operation Sindoor
Sino-Pakistani coordination during India’s Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, was widely anticipated. China has emerged as Pakistan’s primary arms supplier in the last decade, and during 2020-24, roughly 81 percent of Pakistan’s weapon inventory was of Chinese origin. On this basis, it was expected that any India–Pakistan confrontation would expose a tightly integrated Sino-Pakistani opposition, presenting New Delhi with a one reinforced front. However, the record over the past year, during and after Operation Sindoor, has fallen short of these expectations. The presumed depth of operational alignment between Beijing and Islamabad has proven more limited, uneven, and politically constrained than often assumed. Accordingly, India's response has also adopted a varied and nuanced approach.
From the early 2010s, as US–Pakistan relations deteriorated into a pattern of intermittent cooperation and mistrust, China consolidated its position as Islamabad’s principal external benefactor. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing poured resources into Pakistan’s economy, financing power plants, roads, industrial zones, and logistics infrastructure, while advancing strategic projects such as Gwadar port and associated resource development.
For China, the partnership with Islamabad provides a rare opportunity to sell weapons, field-test them in an active South Asian theatre, validate their export competitiveness, and benchmark performance against Western-origin platforms in India’s inventory.
Over the past decade, sustained Chinese investment, paired with consistent political backing in multilateral forums, has strengthened Islamabad’s hand vis-à-vis India. At the UN Security Council and regional multilateral forums, Beijing has repeatedly shielded Pakistan on questions of terrorism designations and internal security, often constraining New Delhi’s diplomatic options. In the aftermath of the Pahalgam Attack, China shielded Islamabad at the SCO Defence Ministers meeting, refusing to mention the attack in the joint statement.
Defence cooperation, however, has been the most consequential pillar of this bilateral relationship. Pakistan stands among the three leading recipients of Chinese arms, alongside Myanmar and Bangladesh, and occupies a central place in Beijing’s defence-industrial strategy. For China, the partnership with Islamabad provides a rare opportunity to sell weapons, field-test them in an active South Asian theatre, validate their export competitiveness, and benchmark performance against Western-origin platforms in India’s inventory. Therefore, Pakistan offers a useful platform for operational familiarisation of Chinese-origin systems under real combat conditions.
In practice, however, the record has been uneven. Chinese-supplied platforms, including artillery, missiles, fighter aircraft, and their munitions, have generally demonstrated average operational performance. However, sensors, radars, and air-defence systems have drawn sustained criticism over their reliability and integration shortcomings. Reporting during Operation Sindoor underscored this divergence: Chinese-origin radars, air-defence networks, and airborne early warning and control platforms underperformed in demanding conditions. Whether due to system design, operator training, or integration gaps, these outcomes have sharpened scrutiny of China’s higher-end defence exports.
Chinese-origin radars, air-defence networks, and airborne early warning and control platforms underperformed in demanding conditions.
The implications extend beyond the immediate theatre. Reputational damage in these categories risks constraining Beijing’s export prospects in competitive markets. Moreover, similar systems remain deployed along the Sino-Indian border, raising questions about their performance under sustained, high-intensity conditions.
Pakistan’s primary utility for China is as a western balancer against India. Beijing treats India as a serious regional competitor, but not a global strategic adversary. This distinction allows Beijing to rely on Islamabad to divert Indian attention to the western front, compelling New Delhi to allocate significant military resources there and easing pressure on the northern theatre against China.
This shared threat perception underpins a structured but bounded partnership. Cooperation is concentrated around four areas: arms transfers, defence industrial collaboration, joint exercises, and training systems. China also supports Pakistan’s ISR capabilities, including satellite-enabled surveillance and reconnaissance.
However, the relationship stops short of operational integration. There is no joint command architecture or coordinated warfighting doctrine. A move toward integrated command would approximate a treaty alliance, an outcome China avoids. Therefore, Beijing has deliberately capped the partnership at strategic support.
Formal alliance commitments would constrain China’s flexibility and risk escalation with India and potentially the US.
The logic is clear. Formal alliance commitments would constrain China’s flexibility and risk escalation with India and potentially the US. Instead, Beijing maintains a calibrated partnership with Islamabad that balances India while preserving room for diplomatic manoeuvre within a wider regional power dynamic.
China–Pakistan relations have lately come under renewed strain as Islamabad’s current leadership courts Washington. Beijing’s concerns are twofold. First, Pakistan’s renewed engagement with the US Central Command since Operation Sindoor has revived suspicions about potential exposure of Chinese-origin military technologies. Second, Islamabad’s expanded diplomatic profile, its role in the US–Iran crisis, mediation efforts, overt praise for President Donald Trump, and visible interest in acquiring US defence equipment and training signal a partial strategic rebalancing that unsettles Chinese planners.
Economic frictions compound these concerns. The momentum of BRI investments has slowed, while Chinese firms report persistent payment delays and contractual disputes. At the same time, repeated terrorist attacks targeting Chinese personnel in Pakistan have heightened risk perceptions and forced costly security adaptations.
Taken together, these trends have introduced an unusual degree of mistrust into a relationship long defined by strategic convergence. For Beijing, the issue is not rupture but reliability: whether Pakistan remains a predictable partner as China navigates intensifying competition with the US and seeks to protect its economic and security equities in South Asia.
A nuanced reading of the Sino–Pak relationship has sharpened India’s China policy. Over the past year, New Delhi and Beijing have restored limited normalcy by resuming direct flights, easing visa procedures, relaxing select investment curbs, and sustaining diplomatic dialogue. Nonetheless, these measures coexist alongside a harder strategic hedge.
India must build capabilities not only against Chinese forces but against Chinese-origin systems fielded by Pakistan.
On the ground, force posture along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains largely unchanged. Disengagement has not translated into de-escalation or troop drawdowns. India continues to hold forward positions while accelerating border infrastructure, patrol intensity, and capability upgrades.
The shift reflects a revised threat assessment. India now treats China as an indirect participant in the India–Pakistan conflict. Chinese military supplies to Pakistan, especially platforms, sensors, and munitions, are expected to expand and feature more prominently in any crisis. What was once primarily political and diplomatic support has now acquired a tangible military dimension, manifested in material assistance and defence systems rather than direct PLA involvement. Accordingly, India must build capabilities not only against Chinese forces but against Chinese-origin systems fielded by Pakistan.
The result is a strategic environment in which the priority has shifted from managing disputes to sustaining credible deterrence amid deepening mistrust, limiting the scope for meaningful confidence-building with China, even as both sides cautiously expand economic engagement.
Atul Kumar is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Atul Kumar is a Fellow in Strategic Studies Programme at ORF. His research focuses on national security issues in Asia, China's expeditionary military capabilities, military ...
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