How Can India Balance The Pakistan China Nexus

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Pakistan and China have professed to the world their long standing & all-weather friendship. This bonhomie has, in the recent past, developed into a strategic nexus between the two, with geopolitical ramifications. This relationship has continued to grow since the 1960s furthering China's strategic interests in the region while fulfilling Pakistan's defence needs and the requirement for diplomatic support internationally.

This book studies the contours of the nexus between Pakistan and China and its effects on India. The book focuses on the various measures across the spectrum of local, regional and global engagement that India can take to balance and counter the effects of the strategic nexus.

Rajesh Bhaskar is a Defence and Strategic Analyst.

A Scholar-Warrior, he is an infantry soldier with extensive experience having operated in all terrain from deserts to super high altitude while having simultaneously written many articles and papers on a wide range of subjects.

A serving Brigadier in the Indian Army, he has been awarded the Sena Medal for gallantry in operations in the face of the enemy. He has held various command, staff and instructional tenures in his illustrious career.

His earlier published book is Modernising National Intelligence Apparatus for Internal Security Operations.

India's quest to find its rightful place in the comity of nations is a peaceful and legitimate journey given its size, population, economy and other facets of its comprehensive national power. The rise of India to a regional and global power is synchronous with its growing economy and soft power internationally. In this journey, India has had to counter two antagonists- Pakistan and China. Each of the antagonists have time and time again put India under duress through acts of war, simmering tensions along border areas and pursuing policies detrimental to India's interests. Both Pakistan and China have found in each other a perfect partner with the singular interest of stymying India and have thus colluded to perpetuate their aim. Their partnership has grown in strength and is perhaps one of the strongest state to state relationships today. Their collusion has myriad effects on India, both directly and indirectly which have to be studied. Such an exercise will help identify measures that India can take to balance the nexus.

Pakistan and China have professed to the world their long standing and all-weather friendship. This bonhomie has in the recent past developed into a strategic nexus between the two, impacting a wide spectrum of areas such as economic, defence / military and infrastructure building with geopolitical ramifications. Pakistan's formal relationship with China began in 1963 with the signing of the Shaksgam Valley agreement.

China's relationship with Pakistan has evolved better than most formal relations between nations. The underlying factor to the relationship is their common enemy- India. In the earlier years, when China was still in the diplomatic cold, Pakistan provided it with access to both United States of America (USA) and the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Pakistan has provided China backdoor access to the best weapons technology in the world (which it received from the USA) giving China the opportunity to reverse engineer the same. Presently, Pakistan and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Makran Coast of Pakistan is vital to China's naval expansion into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The access Pakistan has into the jihadi terrorist network is much sought after by all nations to counter terror and by China to control Islamic terrorism within and navigate the Kafkaesque corridors of the Islamic world in its quest to expand into the Middle East. China has evolved into the best possible support Pakistan could hope for.