While low-level clashes may continue, the possibility of a large-scale conflict, as projected by recent U.S. intelligence reports, remains far-fetched. Both countries are acutely aware that they stand to lose far more than they can gain. Despite uneasy relations, several factors actively discourage conflict
The two incidents in India and Pakistan over the course of a week have shown that the coverage of terrorism by the Chinese media ecosystem largely reinforces the state’s foreign policy narratives and preferences for alignment in South Asia. Pakistan emerges as a clear preference for the public, which is reinforced by commentators and opinion makers on non-state news media platforms.
CPEC 2.0 is expected to serve as a major leverage tool for China to access Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources and enhance connectivity to Pakistan and Central Asia. However, for Afghanistan, the initiative may be more of a challenge than an opportunity. Countries such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives have already faced severe economic consequences from poorly structured Chinese-funded projects.
China's rise has, in the consensus view of most international relations scholars, fundamentally changed South Asia. The old, India-centric region is gone. Pakistan has tied its future to Beijing, seeing China as its ultimate guarantor. Bangladesh has played a smart game, using Chinese money for national development while maintaining its "friendship-to-all" foreign policy. The Teesta project shows Dhaka's new confidence in following its own national interest. For India, the challenge is immense, as it must now compete for influence in its own backyard.
In a long-term plan to reduce dependence on China, senior officials of the four Quad countries - US, Japan,Australia and India - on Thursday explored collaboration to ensure “resilient supply chains” and enhance cooperation in areas of emerging and critical technologies
In a significant meeting, China’s envoy in Pakistan called on Pakistan Army chief and discussed intensified defense collaboration while asserting that Beijing would continue to support Islamabad as a strategic partner. China is Pakistan's largest supplier of arms and its third-largest trading partner
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met a high-level delegation of Taliban leaders in a strategically significant interaction, as the group took control of a large swathe of territory in Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of foreign forces, raising fear of a military takeover of the Afghan government
Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed irked China when he said in a tweet that he was pleased to see a British Carrier Strike group enter the South China Sea
Pakistan and China said they will cooperate more closely on Afghanistan and called on all Afghan stakeholders to agree on a comprehensive ceasefire and find negotiated political settlement
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is in Beijing to participate in the third China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue as the ties hit a bump following the death of nine Chinese workers working on a CPEC project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that is ruled by Prime Minister Imran Khan's PTI party
With Pakistan including Chinese officials in a joint investigation into the Dasu bus blast that killed 15 people, including nine workers from China, Beijing has expressed satisfaction over the ongoing probe, according to a senior Pakistani minister
India is welcome to join the newly launched grouping of South Asian countries on Covid-19 and poverty alleviation led by China, said Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momin, adding that the initiative isn’t meant to exclude India
For the fourth time in less than a year, Pakistani authorities have blocked access to TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video-sharing platform, for its failure to take down "inappropriate content"
In a decision that shows the extent of Chinese influence over Pakistan, the country's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said on Saturday that 15 Chinese officials have been included in the ongoing investigation on the Dasu bus tragedy in which 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, were killed
China and Bangladesh have agreed to work towards the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to the Rakhine state in Myanmar and underscored the need for resuming tripartite talks on the issue, a Bangladesh government statement said
Amid the deepening crisis in the ruling party in the Maldives, President Ibrahim Mohammed Solih on Friday spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping--for the first time in recent years-- and discussed the Covid-19 and “other issues of mutual interest” in a phone call that came two days after his call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
With India expressing singular unhappiness over the fragile standoff on their border where tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides are massed on either side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), China said Thursday that it is ready to seek a "mutually acceptable solution" to the issues that require "urgent treatment" through negotiatio
China State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday asked Pakistan to investigate an explosion on a bus in which nine Chinese workers died in its mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
Asserting that a "unilateral change of status quo" was not acceptable to India, India has reiterated to China that their decades-old border dispute needs to be resolved at the earliest as it "visibly impacting the relationship in a negative manner."
