US-China convergence in Pakistan and India's security dilemma

Dipak Kurmi

(The writer can be reached at dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com.)

In the shifting landscape of 21st-century geopolitics, South Asia has reemerged as a theatre of intense strategic contestation, where the fault lines of great power rivalry are deepening. At the heart of this realignment lies Pakistan, a fragile yet pivotal state whose geography makes it a strategic prize in the ongoing power play between the United States and China. For India, this evolving triangular dynamic presents a multi-layered challenge-one that is simultaneously strategic, security-related, and diplomatic.

As global powers recalibrate their foreign policy imperatives, Pakistan has assumed renewed centrality in their calculations. China's deepening embrace of Pakistan through the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)-the flagship arm of its expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-has transformed Pakistan from a peripheral partner into a vital node in Beijing's strategic vision. The CPEC not only provides China direct access to the Arabian Sea, bypassing the vulnerable Malacca Strait, but it also runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), a territory India considers its own. This deliberate violation of Indian sovereignty is a stark indication of China's willingness to assert itself in South Asia's geopolitics and challenge India on matters of existential importance.

Beijing's strategic calculation in Pakistan is far from superficial. Its interests are twofold: stabilising the restive Xinjiang region by embedding Pakistan into its economic orbit and using Pakistan as a geopolitical lever to contain India from the west, creating a dual-front security dilemma for New Delhi. This has evolved into a quasi-clientelistic relationship. Military ties have deepened through co-development of combat aircraft, joint naval patrols, and intelligence cooperation. The potential establishment of Chinese military logistics facilities at Gwadar port further highlights the long-term trajectory of this strategic convergence. What was once termed an "all-weather friendship" has matured into a structural alignment, with India increasingly encircled by Chinese influence on land and at sea.

On the other side of the strategic chessboard, the United States, despite its pronounced pivot to the Indo-Pacific and embrace of India as a key partner in the Quad grouping, has not fully relinquished its engagement with Pakistan. This engagement, though more tactical than strategic, is fraught with ambiguities. After the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington has been forced to re-examine its approach to the region. The result is a dual-track policy that seeks to curb Chinese influence in Islamabad while also maintaining minimal leverage over Pakistan's military establishment. A striking example of this recalibrated engagement is the recent $450 million U.S. military assistance package to upgrade Pakistan's F-16 fleet. While American officials insist the aid is counterterrorism-focused, Indian strategic circles view such moves with justified scepticism, recalling the historical misuse of Western military support by Pakistan to target India.

This duality in U.S. policy raises uncomfortable questions for New Delhi. While Washington encourages India's leadership role in the Indo-Pacific, its unwillingness to impose red lines on Pakistan's behaviour generates mistrust. Can India fully trust a strategic partner that continues to maintain military channels with a state that harbours anti-India extremist elements and challenges its territorial sovereignty? This dissonance has compelled India to walk a tightrope-strengthening ties with the West without compromising its strategic autonomy or losing sight of the dual-front threat from a Sino-Pakistani axis.

India's challenge, therefore, is complex and urgent. Not only must it guard against encirclement by an increasingly militarised China-Pakistan alliance, but it must also assert its interests within a strategic triangle where the U.S. often adopts a hedging posture rather than a committed partnership. To counter this dynamic, India has responded on several fronts. Militarily, it is undergoing a doctrinal shift marked by the creation of integrated theatre commands-a move aimed at unifying command structures to ensure swift and coordinated responses across multiple fronts. Investments are pouring into next-generation warfare capabilities: space-based surveillance, cyber operations, artificial intelligence-enabled threat detection, and unmanned systems. These shifts are part of a broader realisation that the nature of conflict has expanded beyond traditional battlefields into multi-domain theatres that include cyber and space.

India's diplomatic response has been equally nuanced. While deepening its strategic partnerships with Quad members-Australia, Japan, and the United States-it has simultaneously expanded its engagement with other like-minded powers such as France, Israel, and ASEAN nations. Crucially, these partnerships are not based on rigid alliances but on converging interests, allowing India to preserve its strategic autonomy. This flexibility is both a strength and a burden: while it enables manoeuvrability in a multipolar world, it also places the onus of crisis management squarely on India's shoulders.

The evolving U.S.-China rivalry in Pakistan is more than a diplomatic subplot; it is a harbinger of long-term regional instability. As Beijing continues to flood Islamabad with advanced surveillance technologies, missile systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles, and Washington selectively reopens military cooperation, the end result is an emboldened Pakistani military-jihadi complex. This growing capability could normalise a status quo where Pakistan continues low-intensity conflicts with India under a nuclear umbrella, without facing meaningful international consequences. The threat of escalation-whether along the Line of Control in Kashmir or in the western sector-can no longer be dismissed as hypothetical. The absence of conflict de-escalation protocols, combined with enhanced firepower on both sides, increases the risk of rapid escalation into full-spectrum warfare.

Furthermore, the global counterterrorism framework risks dilution if geopolitical compulsions lead major powers to overlook Pakistan's continued patronage of extremist networks. Such a scenario would compound India's security challenges, allowing non-state actors to thrive under the shield of geopolitical ambiguity. The intersection of great power rivalry and cross-border terrorism poses a uniquely dangerous dilemma for India.

In response, Indian policy must be proactive, layered, and unrelenting in its pursuit of strategic clarity. Diplomatically, India must make the case at every international forum that the CPEC is not just an economic project but a violation of sovereignty, setting a dangerous precedent in international law. It should consistently link this illegality with broader debates on territorial integrity in the era of Chinese expansionism. Simultaneously, India must double down on military modernisation, accelerating indigenisation under the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission and securing technological parity in crucial areas such as hypersonics, maritime surveillance, and cyber defence.

Enhancing intelligence capabilities-both human and signals-based-is vital. The threat matrix India faces today is diffuse, transnational, and technologically sophisticated. It demands a leap in India's intelligence architecture, especially in coastal regions and sensitive border areas where asymmetrical threats often originate. On the maritime front, India must adopt a forward-looking Indo-Pacific strategy that counters China's presence in Gwadar and the Arabian Sea. Strategic port access agreements across East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Andaman region will be critical in projecting Indian influence and deterring adversarial encroachments.

In the final analysis, India finds itself at a geopolitical crossroads where the choices it makes today will define its strategic space for decades to come. The intensification of U.S.-China competition in Pakistan is not merely a regional complication-it is a structural shift in the global order that demands doctrinal clarity and sustained preparedness from New Delhi. The era of passive diplomacy and reactive defence postures is over.

India must now define its role not just as a counterweight to China, nor merely as a partner to the West, but as an independent pole in a multipolar world. It must wield its military, economic, and diplomatic tools with precision and purpose, ensuring that while Pakistan may position itself as a geopolitical pivot, India does not become a pressure point in the games others play. The time to act with strategic foresight, firm resolve, and calibrated ambition is not tomorrow-it is now.