AS Pakistan and China celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations, an important question emerges that goes beyond symbolism: what direction will the relationship take in a rapidly changing world and regional order?

No longer merely a rising power, China is now in the ranks of global superpowers alongside America. This transformation has profound implications for Pakistan. Sharing borders with an emerging superpower presents opportunities, dependencies, pressures and strategic dilemmas that Pakistan has never experienced before.

Pakistan’s long association with the US has seen fluctuating phases of cooperation, mistrust and tra­­nsactional alignments. Geographic distance was a critical factor that allowed Pakistan to have divergent strategic priorities. Washington not only tolerated it but also took advantage whenever needed. But with China, it is a different story.

The relationship is rooted in strategic convergence, regional connectivity, defence cooperation and political trust developed over decades. Yet Chi­­na’s rise has transformed the nature of this partnership as the China with which Pakistan built its early ties during the Cold War era is not the same today. Beijing’s global ambitions, econo­m­­ic priorities and security concerns have exp­a­nded, compelling Pakistan to revisit ways of sustaining strategic closeness while preserving diplomatic flexibility in an increasingly polarised world.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is in Beijing on a four-day state visit, accompanied by senior government and military officials, with expectations that Sino-Pak ties will remain on the same trajectory despite the occasional friction. Most concerns revolve around security issues and threats faced by Chinese nationals working on various projects, particularly CPEC-related, in Pakistan.

Although both countries share the goal of a terrorism-free neighbourhood and their views broadly converge on Afghanistan, there are differences over how to address the problem. Pakistan has drastically altered its Afghanistan policy in recent years, while China has maintained a relatively consistent and pragmatic approach, preferring engagement, mediation and gradual stabilisation.

China’s rise has transformed the nature of the Sino-Pak partnership.

Pakistan’s geopolitical thinking has historically followed a realist framework, largely shaped by its long partnership with Washington. Allia­nces such as Seato and Cento, followed by cooperation during the Afghan wars, created the foundation of that relationship. Military training programmes and security cooperation further institutionalised this approach under which Pakistan pragmatically calculated its interests and maintained working relations with Washington despite recurring mistrust and divergent priorities.

Pakistan moved closer to China after the downturn in US-Pakistan relations following the Osama bin Laden operation in May 2011 and the Salala border incident, when Nato forces attacked Pakistani military border posts in the Salala area of Mohmand Agency in November 2011. The launch of CPEC further cemented ties. However, neither Islamabad nor Rawalpindi ultimately abandoned the balancing approach between Washington and Beijing. Pakistan still depends on China for strategic cover, defence cooperation and financial support, while simultaneously relying on the US-led economic order for exports, international financial institutions and macroeconomic stability.

This balancing act has not weakened Pakistan’s ties with Beijing but has altered their character. Unlike the US, China has rarely pressured Pakistan publicly to choose sides or adopt bloc politics; it has, instead, quietly adjusted its own expectations and vocabulary, gradually shifting from describing Pakistan as an ‘all-weather friend’ to a ‘trusted strategic partner’.

At the same time, the relationship has undergone a subtle but important change, with the earlier optimism regarding CPEC and expectations of an economic breakthrough increasingly giving way to a more realistic understanding of mutual interests and limitations. CPEC itself symbolises both the achievements and limitations of the partnership. It helped address Pakistan’s energy shortages and infrastructure gaps, but the promise of structural economic transformation is only partially fulfilled. Today, the Sino-Pak partnership is more security-driven, more unequal economically, and more strategically consequential.

The future trajectory of the relationship appears less centred on grand economic promises and more on concrete strategic cooperation, including defence integration, counterterrorism coordination, industrial cooperation, mining, agriculture, technology and regional connectivity.

Defence ties have deepened to an unprecedented level, with China accounting for the overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s arms imports, while cooperation now extends to co-production, intelligence sharing, naval modernisation, and long-term defence-industrial integration.

Pakistan’s internal security has also emerged as the most sensitive dimension of bilateral ties. Beijing is increasingly concerned about attacks on Chinese nationals and CPEC-linked projects, and its tolerance is now shaped less by Pakistan’s relations with Washington and more by Islamabad’s ability to protect Chinese interests and maintain policy consistency.

Although China repeatedly reaffirms support for Pakistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability, there is still no evidence of a formal Nato-style mutual defence guarantee between the two countries. Nevertheless, Pakistan’s strategic dependence on China continues to deepen, making it increasingly difficult for Islamabad to maintain a genuinely equidistant posture between Beijing and Washington.

However, Pakistan has sought alternative avenues to preserve this balance. Its expanding role in Gulf security affairs, evolving defence partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Qatar and Egypt, participation in President Donald Trump’s peace initiatives, though currently dormant, and its mediation role in the US-Iran war have opened up diplomatic space for Islamabad to sustain strategic flexibility. The idea of emerging middle-power alignments is also gaining greater significance in the state’s strategic thinking.

However, one question is likely to re-emerge: how will China view Pakistan, a close neighbour that continues to maintain ties with its principal rival, the US?

China possesses several strategic cards, and the one that concerns Pakistan most is the ‘India card’. Yet Islamabad appears confident that India faces broader strategic constraints in evolving an exclusive partnership with China similar to its historical relationship with Russia.

India’s strategic and geo-economic DNA also aligns more naturally with the West, a reality — and an advantage for Pakistan — that Islamabad will continue attempting to challenge within the broader regional competition.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2026

DURING US President Donald Trump’s visit to China, the concept of the ‘Thucydides Trap’ invoked by Chinese President Xi Jinping drew the attention of Western strategic circles.

Many observers saw the remark as a subtle indication that China is now more willing to acknowledge its emergence as a global power. For nearly a decade, Beijing carefully avoided projecting itself as a challenger to the international order, cultivating, instead, the image of a leader of the Global South and a partner of developing economies. If that posture is shifting, the implications could be profound for global politics and for countries like Pakistan, positioned at the intersection of great-power competition, economic dependency and regional strategic realignment.

The Thucydides Trap broadly refers to a historical pattern where an established power is threatened by the rise of a new one, creating conditions that could lead to conflict. Xi’s use of the phrase in the context of US-China ties was therefore significant. It was a carefully calibrated political message aimed at Washington.

Many observers interpreted it as a subtle indication by Beijing that it increasingly views the US as a declining power struggling to preserve an international order that long served American interests.

At the same time, China’s leadership appears more confident in presenting itself as both an economic giant and a central actor in shaping the future global order.

This confidence is rooted in economic realities. Over the last two decades, China has transformed itself into the principal manufacturing and trading hub across Eurasia and much of the Global South, while the US continues to dominate the financial and military architecture of the Atlantic alliance system. China’s trade volume exceeded $6 trillion in 2025, and its expanding influence in green technology, infrastructure development and industrial production is now challenging the foundations of the post-1945 US-led order.

Yet the US retains structural advantages through dollar dominance, technological innovation, semiconductor leadership, military alliances, global universities and capital markets. For this reason, most projections for the coming decade point not towards the complete decline of one power or the absolute victory of another, but a fragmented, increasingly bipolar international system shaped by sustained US-China rivalry in technology, finance, AI and geopolitical influence.

China wants all the advantages of great-power competition without a major military confrontation with the US. It prefers to confine the rivalry to the economic and technological domains.

However, a global power is also expected to assume broader strategic and security responsibilities, and the US appears interested in drawing China into a region long dominated by American influence.

Several Western allies remain careful about deeper involvement in the conflict with Iran, but Beijing’s economic ties with and political influence over Tehran, though cautiously exercised, have made China an unavoidable factor.

In the midst of power competition, Pakistan must ably balance its ties with the US and China.

Nevertheless, Trump publicly claimed that he and Xi agreed that Iran “cannot be allowed” to develop nuclear weapons. The White House further asserted that China had assured Washington it would not supply weapons to Tehran. For some analysts, these remarks hinted at a quiet but important layer of Chinese-Iranian strategic cooperation that Beijing prefers to manage discreetly.

Pakistan’s case is particularly important because Islamabad has become a central channel in facilitating communication between Iran and the US, with China supporting the broader diplomatic effort. For Pakistan, this mediation is critical not only for regional stability but also for balancing its relations with Washington and Beijing. During a conversation between the Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministers before Trump’s visit, Chinese media reported that Beijing had urged Pakistan to step up mediation efforts.

Although the Foreign Office rejected the impression that it was acting under Chinese direction, the episode reinforced the perception that China preferred Pakistan to take a more visible reconciliation role in the Middle East while Beijing itself avoided direct involvement in the US-Iran dispute. This reflects China’s traditional diplomatic approach of limiting overt confrontation with the US while quietly protecting its strategic interests.

Taiwan remains a red line for China, and Washington understands the vulnerabilities of its emerging competitor. Some comparisons have been drawn between Iran and Taiwan as strategic balancing points for the US, though such parallels are limited. Nevertheless, Taiwan is increasingly emerging as a major future fault line.

Lack of trust in diplomacy, especially in mediation efforts, creates both security and political dilemmas, not only for Pakistan but also for Iran, the US and China. Iran appears interested in buying more time, believing prolonged tensions could increase pressure on Washington, while Trump has warned that the US would not permit this indefinitely. China, meanwhile, prefers not to become directly involved in mediation. This makes Pakistan’s role as a trusted intermediary even more important. At present, neither the US nor Iran appears to have another immediate channel to replace Pakistan.

For Islamabad, this is an opportunity to build trust with both sides and strengthen its credentials across West Asia as a reliable diplomatic actor, despite scepticism among some circles in Washington and Tehran. Yet every mediator faces a basic limitation: they can facilitate dialogue but rarely possess enforcement power.

If Pakistan succeeds, its middle-power credentials could strengthen significantly, enabling it to negotiate its economic and strategic interests more effectively both regionally and globally. As part of an emerging middle-power network in the Middle East alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Qatar and Egypt, Pakistan could preserve its critical channels with Washington regardless of changes in the White House.

At the same time, Islamabad would maintain balance in its relations with China, an increasingly important challenge for any country that is a neighbour of a rising global power with which it shares deep economic and strategic ties. This balancing act becomes even more important for Pakistan, given its enduring rivalry with India, which many in Islamabad believe has limited appetite for long-term peace.

In this increasingly complex picture, Pakistan appears to be shaping its geopolitical paradigm around a realist approach focused on balance, strategic flexibility and diplomatic utility.

However, while this paradigm may prove effective in the short term, institutionalising the core values of credible mediation may better serve the country, as institutionalism helps shape and strengthen trust among nations.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2026

IT is one of the enduring ironies in South Asia that even after stepping back from the brink of a potentially disastrous confrontation in May last year, India and Pakistan have been unable to move towards a meaningful dialogue.

When announcing the ceasefire on May 10, US President Donald Trump congratulated both countries for showing “common sense and great intelligence”. Soon afterward, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Islamabad and New Delhi had agreed to begin talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site. Yet, one year later, those promised talks remain elusive. The brief triumph of pragmatism quickly gave way to familiar mistrust, hardened political positions, and strategic posturing. More strikingly, the international actors who had facilitated the ceasefire, including the US itself, showed little interest in converting crisis management into a structured peace process. The outcome is that, on the anniversary of last year’s stand-off, defence superiority is being projected by both countries through a verbal war.

Though India rejected any prospects of talks with Pakistan after Rubio’s statement, a few attempts were still made to consolidate the ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. This raised hopes that both might still be able to sit across the table from each other, even in the midst of the worst crisis. Similar optimism prevailed when the directors general of military operations of both sides effectively used the hotline, which has remained functional since 1971 and was established to help de-escalate crises.

There is also some hope in India’s recent decision to let Pakistani sportsmen participate in international events on its soil, although bilateral sporting ties haven’t been restored. However, a more optimistic aspect is that both countries still interact, albeit in limited ways and mainly through informal diplomatic channels. After the crisis, at least four reported Track 1.5 and Track 2 meetings were held at different locations between 2025 and February 2026, involving strategists, parliamentarians, former diplomats, and some security representatives. These reported talks were deliberately kept discreet and produced no public readouts, which is itself revealing: communication existed, but only under political cover.

A year after the May hostilities, mistrust continues to dominate India-Pakistan ties.

Apparently, these dialogues remained largely focused on military and strategic issues. Yet the real irony is that a public voice for peace from civil society in both countries has remained absent. Whatever limited and half-hearted attempts were made remained largely confined to Zoom chat rooms and failed to create any meaningful impact. The media is not interested in peace; it sells hatred and turns leaders into slaves of their own rhetoric.

In India’s case, hatred against Pakistan has been politicised by the ruling party and used for electoral gains. This has also become a hurdle to dialogue. A more critical development is that, in the ongoing strategic and defence doctrine review in India, Pakistan remains at the core of New Delhi’s threat perception. As this threat perception narrows, it may leave even less space for political engagement in the future. In fact, India is trying to weaponise every available leverage against Pakistan, including water.

Pakistan’s case is not very different from India’s, but its major apprehension is that India is exploiting its internal conflicts, mainly in Balochistan and along the Afghan border, to destabilise the country. Despite these concerns, Pakistan has an edge over India: the ability to engage in dialogue with India at any time, as the civil-military leadership is on the same page and no mainstream political party in Pakistan openly opposes dialogue with India. Moreover, for all its anti-Indian rhetoric, the Pakistani media is less toxic than the Indian media, which feeds hatred against Pakistan to its audience round the clock.

Few might have noticed that during the last few decades, the core issues between the two countries, once part of the composite dialogue framework, have gradually moved to the back-burner, while the issue of terrorism has taken centre stage in the conflict between them. As mentioned earlier, Pakistan holds India responsible for many of its internal security crises and acts of terrorism, while India makes similar accusations against Pakistan.

India once used the terrorism narrative to diplomatically isolate Pakistan at the global level, but over time, Pakistan has removed that stigma. The May stand-off last year also appears to have reduced the international appeal of India’s position on terrorism. Pakistan’s successes against the Islamic State-Khorasan improved its standing with the US and parts of the wider international community. Over the past year, Pakistan has gained diplomatic and geopolitical space, which helped create a more balanced environment during the crisis. The rest was shaped by Trump, who publicly took credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan and repeatedly referred to Indian jet losses.

One must give credit to Pakistan that, over the last two and a half decades, it has fought a war against terrorism on its own soil and has abandoned or suspended support for groups that were once allegedly used as proxies. What greater evidence could there be than Pakistan’s strained relationship with the Afghan Taliban in Kabul, who were once widely regarded as Pakistan’s proxy? Ironically, India is now engaging with them.

The point is that, despite terrorism remaining at the core of the conflict and continuing to shape the two adversaries’ strategic thinking, this is perhaps the first moment in decades that Pakistan has openly talked to India about the issue of terrorism and sought similar acknowledgement and reciprocity from New Delhi.

Although the space for a broad-based peace process between the two countries has shrunk, optimism is the only way forward for peace-loving citizens in both nations. Keeping that optimism alive, however, requires consistent effort. The seeds of hope still exist in the form of limited informal diplomatic contacts and weak but surviving civil society channels between the two sides. After all, even miracles need a starting hand.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2026