China opportunistically exploited the conflict between India and Pakistan earlier this year to conduct the first real-world combat test of several weapons systems supplied to Islamabad, a US congressional panel said.
India and Pakistan exchanged missile strikes, drone attacks, and heavy artillery shelling for four days in their worst conflict in over a quarter century in May, sparking fears of a full-fledged war between the nuclear-armed rivals. The fighting ended in a tense truce after the US negotiated a ceasefire.
India used French and Russian fighter jets during the conflict while Pakistan deployed a range of Chinese weapons.
The clash marked the debut of modern Chinese weapons systems such as the HQ-9 surface-to-air missile, the PL-15 air-to-air missile, and the J-10C fighter aircraft in a real-world field experiment, the bipartisan US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its annual report released on Tuesday.
China, the report said, “leveraged the conflict to test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons, useful in the contexts of its ongoing border tensions with India and its expanding defence industry goals”.
The Chinese were swift in hailing the successes of their weapons systems in the clash, it added.
The fighting began when India launched airstrikes across the border on what it alleged were training facilities for terrorists. The airstrikes were in retaliation for an attack the previous month in the restive Himalayan territory of Kashmir that had killed about two dozen people, mostly Hindu tourists from the mainland.
Delhi blamed Pakistan for the attack. Islamabad denied the allegation and demanded an independent investigation.
Pakistan claimed that its fighter jets shot down at least six Indian aircraft in the initial stages of the conflict, including the newly acquired French-made Rafale.
India did not confirm how many jets it had lost, but top military officials acknowledged that the air force suffered aircraft losses.
In October, Indian Air Force chief Amar Preet Singh claimed that his side had downed an unspecified number of Pakistan’s Chinese fighters as well as US-built F-16s during the conflict.
The US panel’s report noted that Pakistan’s use of Chinese weapons to down Indian aircraft became a “particular selling point for Chinese embassy defence sales efforts despite the fact that only three jets flown by India’s military were reportedly downed and all may not have been Rafales”.
The report cited the French intelligence as saying that China launched a disinformation campaign to undermine Rafale sales and promote its own J-35s, using fake social media accounts to circulate AI-generated and video-game images purporting to show “debris” from aircraft allegedly shot down with Chinese weapons.
“Chinese embassy officials convinced Indonesia to halt a purchase of Rafale jets already in process, furthering China’s inroads into other regional actors’ military procurements,” it added.
China is Pakistan’s main weapons supplier, accounting for 81 per cent of its arms imports over the past five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank.
The neighbours now also conduct joint drills. In November and December last year, they launched the three-week Warrior-VIII counterterrorism drills. In February this year, the Chinese navy participated in Pakistan’s multinational AMAN drills.
China hasn’t responded to the US report yet. It has also refrained from commenting on the use of its weapons in the conflict and from directly confirming the Pakistani claims.
After the conflict erupted, Beijing called for “maximum restraint” and urged the warring sides to avoid taking actions that could "further complicate the situation”.
The rivalry between India and Pakistan goes back to their independence from British rule in 1947 and is driven mainly by the unresolved Kashmir dispute. They have fought three wars over the majority Muslim Himalayan region, which they hold in part but claim in full.
India accuses Pakistan of fuelling an armed revolt against Indian rule in Kashmir which is now midway through its third decade. Pakistan denies this.
India is also locked in a Himalayan border dispute with China. The two nations fought a war in 1962 which led to China seizing a part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Their soldiers also engaged in a deadly border clash in 2020 that led to a freezing of bilateral relations for years.
