China’s duplicity on display during the India-Pakistan conflict

The India-China relation, an already contentious one, wavering more often towards competition and conflict with small bouts of cooperation, became more complicated as India launched Operation Sindoor to retaliate against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Pahalgam.

To begin with, China refrained from calling Pahalgam a terrorist attack. Furthermore, following the attack, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated, “China fully understands Pakistan’s reasonable security concerns and supports Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and security interests.”

It is pertinent to note that China did not issue any such statement for India, the victim of the terror attack, but instead issued one in support of Pakistan. Mao Keji, a Chinese commentator with significant social media presence, lamented that Beijing’s remarks were aimed at dissuading India from undertaking any military action.

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As India launched Operation Sindoor on the intervening night of May 6 and May 7, China labelled the operation “regrettable”, while urging restraint.  The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that India and Pakistan are and always will be each other’s neighbours. They are China’s neighbours as well. In this, Beijing attempted to signal a neutral stance while reaffirming support for Pakistan’s sovereignty and so-called counter terrorism efforts.

While this was the official stance, state-controlled media from China did the needful in clarifying Beijing’s position. China Daily, Global Times and CGTN all pushed out disinformation, projecting a strong Pakistan backed by China, taking on India. The spread of false narratives from state-controlled Chinese media was so massive that the Indian Embassy in Beijing had to take to X (formerly Twitter) to counter the false narratives being spread by China’s state-controlled media.

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Even as Beijing official statements struck a neutral tone in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, there are reasons to believe that China extended military support to Pakistan to mount a response to India’s retaliatory attacks. As stated by Ashok Kumar, the Director of CENJOWS, in an interview, that “China helped them [Pakistan] redeploy their air defence radar so that any actions we do from the aerial route is known to them.”

Furthermore, a Chinese analyst on X, using the handle tphuang, with significant social media following, pointed out that given the sophistication of Rafale, it is highly unlikely for the PAF to shoot it down unless it received intelligence from Chinese radars stationed in Tibet. Thus, there is a greater likelihood of a China-Pakistan collusion during the conflict.

China’s hypocrisy was also apparent in the UN Security Council’s statement on the Pahalgam terror attacks. While the statement condemned terrorism in all its form and expressed condolences to India and Nepal, it refrained from naming ‘The Resistance Front’, a proxy of the UN-designated terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba that claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack.

China’s coordination with Pakistan at the UNSC, blocking mention of TRF, has been seen in India as a diplomatic support to Pakistan, which undermines the disengagement and the attempts to normalise relations between India and China, from 2024.

Operation Sindoor has also cast a spotlight on China’s role as Pakistan’s key arms supplier, with observations comparing and contrasting the performance of Chinese weapons against Indian and Western systems like the Rafale. China has supplied more than $20 billion worth of arms to Pakistan, and this includes 20J-10CE, Wing Loong, missiles such as Hongqi HQ-9P surface to air missiles, among a long list of others. All of this only escalates the India-China rivalry.

Thus, the short war-like conflict between India and Pakistan yet again reflected China’s duplicity in it approach to conflicts. On one hand, it attempted to project an image of neutral party, on the other hand, it amplified the false narratives of Pakistan against India. On one hand, while Beijing called for restraint and peace, on the other hand, it extended support to Pakistan.

China’s duplicity is not new. There’s always been a huge difference in what China preaches to the world, and what it actually practices. In addition to the conflict between India and Pakistan, China also attempted renaming places in India’s Arunachal Pradesh, and the timing of the naming exercise cannot be missed. Additionally, some Chinese officials have also recently inspected the British era Lalmonirhat airfield, which Bangladesh is eyeing to revive with Chinese assistance. Before Chinese officials visited Lalmonirhat, a Pakistani military intelligence delegation inspected some border areas of Bangladesh as well. Again, the timing cannot be missed here.

Keeping China’s duplicity and attempts to keep India restricted to managing conflicts in its periphery, the Indian delegation visiting friendly countries, to share updates on Pakistani terrorism and India’s Operation Sindoor, is giving China a skip. The fragile hopes of normalisation of India-China ties have clearly been flushed down the drain and the suspicion of China is here to stay in India.

The brief episode of conflict between India and Pakistan has revealed what China wants from India a weakened, subordinate position to China, which can be leveraged by China only in its tirade against the West — a position and a future, that is unacceptable to India.

Sriparna Pathak is Associate Professor, Chinese Studies and International Relations, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, Haryana. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.