Kashmir | India and Pakistan: War of words between hostile neighbors

Now the cat's out of the bag: India's Chief of the Air Force Staff, Anil Chauhan, gave a memorable interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia's most important security conference. "What matters is not that a jet was shot down, but why it was shot down," the general told Bloomberg TV, admitting that India did indeed suffer military losses in the brief but fierce skirmish with Pakistan in mid-May. The government in New Delhi was reluctant to admit this. Yet there was ample evidence that Pakistan had destroyed at least one of the outrageously expensive Dassault Rafale jets that India imported from France at a price of more than €200 million each.

"The good thing is: We understood the tactical errors we made and were able to correct them two days later," said the general. Following a terrorist attack in the Kashmir region, which is disputed between India and Pakistan, India declared the military operation "Sindoor" in May, during which the Indian army attacked numerous facilities of the Pakistan-based terrorist organizations Jaish-e-Mohamad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayba (LeT). Pakistan retaliated. In the ensuing two-day air battle, which involved the use of hundreds of drones, around 200 people were killed, including, according to Indian sources, around 100 terrorists in Pakistan.

The exchange of blows between the hostile neighbors, both of which possess nuclear weapons, not only provided a real-time insight into modern, digitally controlled warfare – it also shifted the strategic balance on the subcontinent in favor of China. It revealed the extent to which China is now responsible for the strategy and equipment of the Pakistani military. This is not only bad news for India; it also makes a full-blown conventional war in the region more likely. "Proxy wars and terror are the new normal, as is a counterattack," says Pakistani military expert Ayesha Siddiqa. Added to this is an often overlooked fact: the region has been undergoing a massive conventional arms buildup for some time.

Massive rearmament

India's military spending grew by a hefty 9.53 percent in 2025. China increased its military budget for this year by 7.2 percent, according to the Ministry of Finance. According to Shashi Tharoor, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Indian Parliament, Pakistan imports 82 percent of its weapons from China. According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), more than three-quarters (77 percent) of Pakistan's military equipment came from China in 2020.

The interests of the Indian and Chinese sides diverge: India has long felt under pressure to use increasingly harsh means against terrorist organizations that, protected by the Pakistani military, carry out attacks on Indian territory. "From Pakistan's perspective, there was an advance from India. Pakistan repelled it. The government is satisfied," says Ayesha Siddiqa. Pakistan lays claim to Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region – a bone of contention between the two countries since independence in 1947. Since Pakistan cannot militarily defeat the much larger and now economically massively expanded India, it is relying on a "policy of a thousand pinpricks" to conquer Kashmir.

In Pakistan, a country shaken by economic crises and where civilian governments are regularly ousted by the army, Kashmir is an effective means for the military to stoke nationalism and demonstrate its relevance. But the wave of nationalism, fueled by the media during "Operation Sindoor," is also not unwelcome to the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2019, his government revoked the special status of the then state of Jammu and Kashmir and established the predominantly Buddhist region of Ladakh as a separate state, a move that was met with little enthusiasm in Kashmir. The promise to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, which remains under the administration of the government in New Delhi, is currently on hold.

Modi's Kashmir policy is a thorn in Beijing's side because it underscores India's territorial claim to the Aksai Chin region, a Chinese-administered part of Kashmir, and to the Shaksgam Valley in Kashmir, which Pakistan ceded to China. However, China is pursuing a longer-term geopolitical strategy that extends far beyond these border disputes. It seeks to consolidate its dominant power in Asia and push back the influence of India and the United States in the region.

China rivals India

"China wants India to remain embroiled in regional conflicts that drain its financial and military resources," says journalist Sandipan Sharma of the magazine "India Today." He quotes security expert Tara Kartha of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, a think tank in New Delhi, as saying: "India must know its real enemy. This enemy wants India to wage war." Anushka Saxena, a research fellow at the Takshashila Institution, a think tank in Bengaluru, agrees: "From China's perspective, a small, local conflict is not an unfavorable outcome." The challenge, he says, is the risk of escalation into a full-scale war, which would impact China's economic and security interests.

Liu Zongyi, Director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS), therefore advocates de-escalation. He argues that if the conflict with Pakistan continues, India could support separatist and extremist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which would threaten Pakistan's internal security and disrupt the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). CPEC is a key element of China's "Belt and Road Initiative," an instrument designed to secure China's global influence through investments in critical infrastructure. While there is no evidence that India supports extremist groups, China has bigger plans anyway.

For the first time, Pakistani forces deployed a large number of Chinese weapons in the short war in May, including the J-10 fighter jet, the JF-17 fighter jet developed in cooperation with Pakistan, the HQ9P missile defense system, PL-15 missiles, and hundreds of drones. "In addition to the use of Chinese military technology, air defense, and satellite-based reconnaissance, Pakistan's efforts to emulate the Chinese military's multi-domain warfare became evident," says Harsh Pant, professor of international relations at King's College London.

China has introduced the concept of multi-domain warfare to strengthen its conventional capabilities by integrating information, cybersecurity, and space for warfare purposes. Joint military exercises with Pakistan and cooperation in various other areas aim to achieve interoperability for joint operations. The goal is to consolidate coordinated procedures and interdependencies to the extent that interchangeability can be achieved in the long term.

At the same time, the presence of the Chinese survey vessel "Da Yang Yi Hao," which surfaced in the Indian Ocean in May (and is suspected of conducting espionage under the guise of research), points to broader strategic coordination. For India, this brings a dreaded two-front war within reach. "Military cooperation between China and Pakistan goes far beyond the logic of post-Cold War geopolitical signaling. The threat to India is immediate, serious, and current," Pant warns.

Indian Ocean is a strategic factor

The Indian Ocean region is a vital maritime corridor connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe. India perceives China's growing influence in the Indian Ocean—which stems from its strategic initiatives, including the New Silk Road, military modernization, and infrastructure investments—as a threat. The term "string of pearls" has been used for some time to describe this Chinese strategy. It refers to a network of military and commercial facilities and relationships along the maritime routes stretching from mainland China to Port Sudan in the Horn of Africa.

The sea routes pass through several maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Strait of Lombok, as well as other strategic maritime hubs in Somalia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. Many Indian commentators argue that this strategy—along with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and other parts of the Silk Road—poses a national security threat, as it could encircle India, jeopardize its trade, and, in the worst case, its territorial integrity. Furthermore, India fears that China could establish a naval base in the Pakistani port of Gwadar, which is part of the CPEC, allowing Beijing to wage expeditionary warfare in the Indian Ocean region.

India will therefore continue to invest in its military. The country already has the fourth-largest defense budget in the world after the USA, China, and Russia. The next war will likely not be long in coming. At the end of Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Modi emphasized that the ceasefire was only a pause. Any further terrorist attack would be met with military retaliation. The situation therefore remains extremely tense.

Britta Petersen heads the regional office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in the Indian capital New Delhi.