New Delhi: China on Monday moved to step up security cooperation with Pakistan to jointly ensure peace and stability in the region, even as it recently came out in public about providing on-site technical support to the armed forces of its "all-weather friend" during the South Asian nation's cross-border military flare-up with India in May 2025.
Beijing also lauded Islamabad's role in the efforts to end the West Asia conflict.
Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan in Beijing a day before India would host a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad, which had come into existence to counter the communist country's hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region.
"China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity," Xi told Sharif. "The two sides should conduct security cooperation even better and in broader areas and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability," he was quoted as telling the prime minister and military chief of Pakistan in a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the communist country's government.
"Pakistan will always be China's good friend and good partner," Sharif told Xi, pledging to advance the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), so that the bilateral relationship would continue to grow and benefit the people of both nations.
New Delhi has been opposing the CPEC as it violates the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of India. The 3000-km-long connectivity project, a flagship component of China's Belt and Road Initiative, linked the communist country's Xinjiang Autonomous Region and the port city of Gwadar in southern Pakistan. It covered India's territory in J&K under illegal occupation by Pakistan. China pledged to invest $ 65 billion in infrastructure projects along the CPEC, including in the territories of India occupied by Pakistan.
G-2 games and the Pakistan pivotAfter China recently confirmed that it had provided on-site technical support to Pakistan during the South Asian nation's cross-border military flare-up with India in May 2025, New Delhi hit out at Beijing. India tacitly suggested that China should reflect on whether it should help protect the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan.
Zhang Heng, an engineer from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China's (AVIC) Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, recently confirmed during an interview on CCTV, a state-owned TV channel of the communist country, that he had provided on-site technical support to the armed forces of Pakistan when the South Asian nation had to respond to the military offensive launched by India between May 7 and 10 last year.
An AVIC subsidiary produces the J-10CE fighter jets that China provided to Pakistan.
The officials of the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force had earlier confirmed that Pakistan had fired PL-15 missiles made in China at targets in India during the May, 2025, cross-border military flare-up. China had also purportedly provided satellite support to Pakistan to choose targets in India and to neutralise India's counterattacks.
Xi hosted Sharif just a day before India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar would host United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi in New Delhi for a meeting of the Quad.
The Quad came into existence to counter China's hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region. But, given the recent meeting between Xi and US President Donald Trump in Beijing, the meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday is unlikely to see the four-nation coalition turning overtly adversarial to China.