The loudest cheers of victory in the brief India-Pakistan war are congratulating the Pakistani pilots who flew Chinese-built jets firing impressive PL-15 missiles, purportedly enabling them to shoot down six of India’s French and Russian warplanes.
China is sharing Pakistan’s military success. Since the mid-20th century, China has been arming, investing in, and helping to construct Pakistan, which is a crucial nation in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a non-NATO ally of the US.
Pakistan is China’s only overland access to the Arabian Sea that opens onto the Indian Ocean and the Middle East’s vital petroleum shipping lanes.
“The confirmed kill of a sixth Indian Air Force jet, a Mirage 2000 near Pampore on the night of May 6-7, once again demonstrates the superior combat performance of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the unwavering resolve of our armed forces to defend the motherland at any cost,” Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif said on May 16 while visiting a PAF base.
Pakistan claimed the six downed Indian aircraft included three Rafales armed with European-built air-to-air Meteor missiles, a French Mirage 2000 jet, one Russian-supplied SU-30MKI and one Russian MiG-29, plus a “loitering” Israeli-supplied Heron surveillance drone and dozens of “killer drones” built by Israel.
India avoided releasing details about the toll on its planes.
“When questioned on the status of the three downed Rafales, IAF [Indian Air Force] senior commander Air Marshal A K Bharti deflected with, ‘We are in a wartime scenario, losses are part of the battle’ — a remark seen by many analysts as an implicit confirmation,” Malaysia-based Defense Security Asia reported.
“To regional military observers, the vagueness of Bharti’s response only reinforces the credibility of Pakistan’s narrative surrounding the shootdowns,” it said.
Meanwhile, the PAF satirized “India’s nine billion dollar dream!” as New Delhi’s waste of money after recent military purchases.
Mocking India’s international embarrassment and purported losses, the PAF posted online a “PAF mess breakfast these days”, which showed a photograph of the cantonment restaurant’s new handwritten “Air Defense Officers Mess” menu.
The PAF’s two-course meal featured only French toast and Russian salad. Pakistan’s US-built F-16s and other aircraft supported the Chinese JF-17s and J-10s against India, Pakistan’s Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed said.
Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir, describing Kashmir, vowed in April: “Our stance is very clear, it was our jugular vein, it will be our jugular vein.”
Compared to the growing military entwining of Beijing and Islamabad, the US. and Pakistan have had much more extensive defense and security links for decades.
Those military links include mutual support during Washington’s failed 20-year-long war in Afghanistan, and its earlier disastrously counter-productive support for Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist “holy warrior” mujahideen during the Soviet Union’s 10-year occupation.
Pakistan’s secretive relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban along their disputed British colonial-imposed Durand Line border soured dialogue with the US over the years.
Islamabad’s battle in the sky against New Delhi, however, appears to have attracted fresh US support.
“When India hit back with precision and restraint, it wasn’t Pakistan that reversed the tide of battle. It was Washington,” wrote New Delhi-based opinion columnist Brahma Chellaney on The Hill’s op-ed page.
“The Trump administration stepped in at a pivotal moment, using coercive leverage to compel India to cease its operation prematurely. In doing so, Trump not only spared Pakistan the consequences of its actions, but also damaged the foundation of US-India strategic trust,” Chellaney said.
“Pakistan was never a technical ally of the United States. I mean there was no treaty of alliance with Pakistan,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said in January.
Pakistan’s non-NATO ally status includes priority military partnership, but unlike NATO or Five Eyes, the US and Pakistan are not committed to defending each other or sharing intelligence.
Pakistan’s robust retaliation against India’s bombardments during their four-day battle surprised many after Islamist insurgents killed 26 Indian civilians on April 22 in Pahalgam, an idyllic, forested Himalayan tourist town in Indian-controlled Kashmir state.
Pakistan denied supporting the Islamists’ slaughter of civilians. Both sides claimed dozens of civilians perished in the ensuing battles. India said it vaporized Islamist fighters and their secretive gathering sites inside Pakistan.
Various Muslim rebel groups, some based in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and others inside India’s Muslim-majority Kashmir, want either autonomy for Indian-held Kashmir, reunification with Pakistani-held Kashmir, or independence for a united Kashmir.
Despite being unable or unwilling to provide evidence that Islamabad arranged the killings, Hindu-majority India unleashed its military assault against Pakistan. India later issued some tough rhetoric after a ceasefire took hold.
“India will only engage with Pakistan on two issues, terrorism and the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, ruling out any possibility of normal diplomatic dialogue,” announced Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
China’s role in bloodying India’s Air Force during their attacks dates back to 2022 when Pakistan’s Air Force received its first six J-10 fighter jets, built by Chengdu Aircraft Corp., and dubbed them “dragons from the East.”
Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of China-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine said at the time:
“The J-10CE is an export variant of the J-10C, one of the best light-duty, multirole combat planes in the world, and also one of the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s most powerful pieces of hardware.
“The plane is able to fire missiles from beyond visual range. Together with its long flight range, the jet will substantially extend the PAF’s [Pakistan Air Force’s] operational radius, and give it more time to handle suspected intrusions.
“Moreover, the J-10CE can carry out precision strikes against land targets, offering its user more options when planning military operations,” Wang said.
After a tenuous ceasefire began with India, the air-to-air PL-15 missiles’ performance and the Pakistani pilots’ maneuverability gained China international publicity and heightened perceptions of Chinese ingenuity and military prowess.
“The PL-15 is a big problem. It is something that the US military pays a lot of attention to,” a defense industry executive told Reuters.
“The United States is developing the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile via Lockheed Martin partly in response to the PL-15 and its beyond-visual-range performance – part of a broader reset of Western priorities toward China,” Reuters reported.
Increased Chinese weapons sales to Islamabad and other envious capitals may soon result.
“In its first battlefield test against Western arms, Chinese weapons mostly hit the mark, sparking interest in some military circles and alarm in some capitals,” France 24 reported.
China sells its biggest proportion of weapons to Pakistan, according to Sweden’s Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In turn, Islamabad buys most of its weapons from Beijing. Other top arms dealers to Pakistan include Turkey, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Ukraine.
International weapons industry chatter expects China’s J-10CE jet fighter will attract Egyptian, Iranian and Saudi buyers now that the aircraft has been proven in battle.
China had been selling lower-quality jet fighters mostly to impoverished Bangladesh, Zambia, Sudan and North Korea.
A China-friendly Pakistan pleases Beijing because it can stack the country’s military, intelligence agencies, and public against their joint former wartime enemy – India. All three nations have nuclear weapons.
“Tremendous amounts of diplomatic efforts, including by China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, helped broker the truce,” government-controlled China Daily reported.
“Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had telephone conversations respectively with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar on May 10.”
“Given the important role China plays in the region, particularly its close relations with Pakistan — which quickly gained the upper hand in the conflict after India’s first wave of attacks — it is fair to say Beijing played a key role in helping to calm the situation,” China Daily reported.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, Chinese BRI personnel are being killed by a separate force, on the ground, comprised of minority ethnic Baloch and Islamist guerrillas that General Munir is unable to contain.
A smoldering insurgency for independence led by the Balochistan Liberation Army launches hit-and-run assaults against Chinese engineers and other personnel in Balochistan province’s rugged, stony desert, which borders southeast Iran and southeast Afghanistan.
Resource-rich but undeveloped, Balochistan is Pakistan’s biggest province, comprising about 45% of the country, including Quetta, its provincial capital.
Almost 100 Chinese personnel sent to Pakistan to work in Balochistan and elsewhere on US$70 billion BRI projects have been killed by insurgents during the past several years, amid complaints that China is muscling in on the province to profit from, and exploit, locals.
Further north near the legendary Khyber Pass, the Islamist insurgents Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Islamic State Khorasan have also been blamed for anti-Chinese assaults.
The BRI project is creating a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) by upgrading infrastructure along a 1,800-mile (3,000-kilometer) route linking southwest China with Balochistan’s hammerhead-shaped peninsula and port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, close to the Persian Gulf.
When Marco Polo traveled from Venice to Beijing in the 13th Century, he journeyed via a Silk Road.
Supporters hail the CPEC as “a New Silk Road” reinvigorating various ancient Silk Roads which interconnected overland trade routes, including links from Kashgar, China’s southwest city in Xinjiang province, to the Arabian Sea on Pakistan’s south coast.
The corridor would enable goods to be transported to and from China on a streamlined Gwadar-Kashgar highway, connecting onward to all other Chinese cities.
Chinese engineers are also enlarging Gwadar’s deep-water port, operated by the China Overseas Port Holding Co, to handle Chinese ships transporting petroleum from the Persian Gulf to China.
That Arabian Sea route would be much shorter than the current shipping lanes, which depart the Middle East and route south around India, and then through the Malacca Strait, which is monitored by US-backed Singapore.
Chinese ships then head north via the disputed waters of the South China Sea to reach China’s ports. Gwadar and CPEC would cut those lengthy sea routes, bypass the Malacca Strait, and enable unloading of cargo at Gwadar for overland vehicle transport north to Xinjiang.
Gwadar also benefits from its close proximity to Karachi, a major port, capital of Sindh province and Pakistan’s financial, industrial, and cultural center with Arabian Sea beaches.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent more than 300 special operations, army aviation, and logistic support troops from its Western Theater Command in November 2024 to a three-week Pakistan-China Joint Exercise on Pakistani territory.
Beijing has its reasons to support a friend against New Delhi. China won its brief war against India in 1962, leaving both nations occupying territory claimed by the other.
Islamabad and New Delhi, however, fought four wars after being clumsily split apart by departing British colonialists when Pakistan and India gained independence in 1947.
Neither side won their 1947-1948 battle over the partition of Kashmir, which ended with a United Nations-mandated ceasefire and an internationally recognized Line of Control, which forms their current border.
Their 1965 war ended in a stalemate after Kashmir again fueled anger on both sides. The then-Soviet Union brokered a Tashkent Agreement, which did not change India’s hold on two-thirds of eastern Kashmir and Pakistan’s control over the remains of western Kashmir.
New Delhi defeated Islamabad in the 1971 war, which turned then-East Pakistan into independent Bangladesh and truncated the former West Pakistan into the Islamic republic’s current size.
India beat Pakistan again in their 1999 Kargil war amid Kashmir’s steep Himalayan glaciers, forcing Pakistani soldiers and insurgents to retreat from Kashmir.
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University’s Foreign Correspondents’ Award. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, “Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York” and “Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks” are available here.
