The fragile ceasefire between India and Pakistan, negotiated by the United States, appears to be holding for now, but with tensions still running high, it is unclear whether or not it will last. Signed on Saturday, May 10, violations were already reported within hours, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, Indian-occupied areas which are central to China’s Belt and Road initiative in Pakistan.The potential for ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan and the strategic importance of Kashmir to the rivalry between the U.S. and China means that the region could become a new point of tension, alongside Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and the various open fronts in the Middle East, in an increasingly convulsive global situation.
The China-Pakistan Relationship: A Central Link in Belt and Road Strategy
The clash between India and Pakistan involves interests that go far beyond the two belligerents. Since 2017, China has implemented a massive investment plan in Pakistan, estimated at $62 billion. At the heart of the project is the construction of the southern port of Gwadar and a rail network that connects the port, largely administered by China, to Kashgar, in the far west of China, a city emblematic of the repression of the Uighur minority.
This massive investment project is part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, which aims to compete with maritime routes controlled by the United States or its allies by building port infrastructure around the world. Pakistan plays a central role in this plan. Beijing is extremely dependent on the Middle East and Africa for its energy imports and its supply of strategic minerals. However, despite having more than 15,000 km of coastline, particularly in the Pacific, it has no access to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The majority of its imports therefore pass through the Strait of Malacca, a bottleneck located between the island of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Malaysia, south of Thailand.
Monitored by the U.S. Navy, the closure of the strait would allow Washington to suffocate the Chinese economy if they chose to. As Rémi Bessière pointed out in November 2022:
China became, in 2019, the fifth largest oil producer in the world while being, since 2017, the world’s largest importer, with approximately 13.4% of its energy consumption imported every year. Thus, approximately 58% of this imported oil comes from the Middle East, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya. In addition, 60% of cobalt reserves are located in the DRC. There is in reality almost only one route that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese coasts to the Indian Ocean, this route passing through a strait, that of Malacca — through which 80% of China’s oil imports pass. 1Rémi Bessière, “Chinese “dilemmas”: grand strategies to try to respond to geography,” Economic Intelligence Portal , 11/23/2022..
Chinese investments in Pakistan thus aim to resolve what former Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2003 called the “Malacca dilemma,” by giving China access to the Arabian Sea while avoiding the Indian Ocean and bypassing the Southeast Asian routes blocked by the United States. As Benjamin Bürbaumer explains in a recent book,
comprising a road, a railway, a gas pipeline and an oil pipeline, it connects the city of Kashgar to the Pakistani city of Gwadar. The latter is located near the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly half of the oil consumed in China passes. Before arriving there, tankers have generally made a long journey that has taken them around not only the Indochinese peninsula but also the Indian subcontinent. 2Benjamin Bürbaumer, China/United States, capitalism against globalization, Paris, La Découverte, 2024, p. 135..
Bürbaumer further states that:
the corridor’s advantage lies not only in the time savings and independence associated with the ability to switch to land transport from Gwadar. The corridor also provides direct land access to Iran’s oil fields. Thus, even in the event of a naval blockade of the world’s primary strategic chokepoint, China’s supply would not stop entirely.
With negotiations with Iran having resumed and Trump potentially further strengthening the U.S. military presence in the Strait of Hormuz, which has already been increased since the start of the genocide in Gaza, Pakistan is of decisive importance.
Because of its location, the China-Pakistan Corridor allows China to strengthen its position on the western seaboard and protect supply chains crucial to its economy by removing them from U.S. control. However, this solution to the Indo-Pacific belt that U.S. imperialism seeks to build from India to Taiwan crucially depends on the stability of Kashmir. Indeed, Gilgit-Baltistan, under Pakistani occupation, constitutes the only point of contact between China and Pakistan. It is through this region, also claimed by India, that the corridor passes before arriving in Azad Kashmir, also under Islamabad’s control. As India resumes an increasingly aggressive posture in the region, a high or very high-intensity conflict could render the corridor unusable, while the line linking Gwadar to Kashgar could be severed if India launched a land invasion of the region.
Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, the United States, which had been using Pakistan as a rear base, has reduced its financial aid to the country, leaving the field open to China, which is increasingly funding the Pakistani military to protect its interests in an unstable country. As Rishi Iyengar notes in Foreign Policy, Pakistan has purchased at least 81 percent of its equipment from China since 2024. Chinese interests thus tend to strengthen military Bonapartism, the arbiter between the warring parties, embodied today by the very hawkish Asim Munir.
Washington in Action
In this context, China has no interest in escalating the conflict in Kashmir and, as Le Monde explains, has put pressure on Pakistan to limit the conflict. However, China does not rule out the possibility of military engagement, as evidenced by the continuous strengthening of its military positions on the Sino-Indian border since 2020. More than 25,000 soldiers, supported by artillery and air defense units, are now located at different points along the line, and it can deploy 50,000 soldiers in record time thanks to its logistical and military infrastructure.
As for the United States, Washington’s preference has been for New Delhi, since the thaw in their relations following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the USSR. India plays an important role in the containment of China in the Indian Ocean. Since Obama, the United States has signed numerous treaties with New Delhi, which have expanded their military and economic cooperation and the sharing of crucial strategic intelligence to support China’s regional competitor. While Washington sees India’s emergence as an opportunity to strengthen one of China’s major adversaries in the region, India sees its relations with Western powers as a means of benefiting from military and diplomatic support that would allow it to become a regional power. This ambivalent relationship is based on a congruence of the interests of the two countries in their policy of containing China, and on India’s desire to present itself as an alternative to receiving capital from major American groups. However, it leaves the path open to disagreements on certain important geopolitical issues.
While some Democratic voices have been raised in support ofIndia’s offensive, explaining that the country, like Israel, has “the right to defend itself against terrorism,” the Trump administration has adopted a different line. After announcing with great fanfare on Saturday that his administration was behind the fragile ceasefire, the president also indicated that he was offering U.S. mediation to resolve the conflict in Kashmir. This position is particularly unfavorable to India, which generally considers the situation in Kashmir to be an internal or, at best, bilateral affair, which does not have to be resolved through international institutions.
In a way, by offering to mediate, Trump is helping Pakistan, by implicitly admitting that the country’s arguments should be considered. This position has likely offended Modi’s Hindu supremacist government,which has denied the decisive involvement of the United States in the ceasefire, while leaving Trump’s proposal unanswered.From this perspective, Trump’s position illustrates the “America First” approach that has guided his foreign policy. Although an important ally of the United States, for the Trump administration, India’s interests are less important than Washington’s objectives. Trump thus did not hesitate to intervene directly in the discussion, even if it meant putting Modi in a very difficult position. As Christophe Jaffrelot , an India specialist, explained:
“in a few hours, Washington brought India back to square one, a country that, since the 1970s, had managed to avoid any internationalization of [the Kashmir issue], which it wishes to resolve bilaterally.”
The Modi government immediately came under harsh criticism, both from its supporters — who, fired up by the government and the media, hoped to finally eliminate the Pakistani threat — as well as the opposition, who accused it of capitulating to the United States.
By pressuring Modi, Trump was desperate to prevent a new flashpoint from flaring up, given that the United States is already engaged in a wide range of issues, from negotiations with Iran to a ceasefire with the Houthis and negotiations in Ukraine. To prevent the emergence of a new conflagration that would exacerbate the overstretched U.S. military capabilities, Trump appears to have ignored the political needs of a crucial ally. Moreover, while an Indian attack could seriously hamper China, the United States is not yet in a position to enter into, or certain it could win, an open conflict with Beijing. To prepare for an intensification of the conflict with China, the Trump administration must for now play it safe.
Trump’s pledges to Pakistan could represent a first attempt to thaw the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Trump could thus favor tools other than the threat of an Indian attack to thwart Chinese projects in the country, particularly in terms of military cooperation and arms sales, which have been declining since 2014.
China, for its part, also seems to be trying to give assurances to India. On April 28, a few days before India’s aggression, Chinese Foreign Minister Guo Jiakun formulated a balanced position. “India and Pakistan are two important countries in South Asia. Their harmonious coexistence is vital to peace, stability, and development in the region.” After India’s response, Beijing denounced a “regrettable attack” while indicating its “opposition to terrorism.” As The Diplomat notes, direct opposition to India could deprive China of access to the Indian market at a time when trade tensions with the United States are very volatile, despite the 90-day truce negotiated in Geneva. While it will not tolerate an attack on Pakistan, it is nevertheless trying to accommodate India at a time when its economy is facing potential difficulties thanks to Trump’s trade policies.
It remains to be seen, however, whether pressure from Trump and China will be sufficient to prevent a renewed flare-up of the conflict between India and Pakistan. In the confrontation between the two countries, and even more so, in the rivalry between the United States and China, the interests of the working classes are not represented by any actor. In Kashmir, neither India nor Pakistan plays a progressive role. Pakistan has consistently exploited Kashmiri independence struggles to further its own reactionary interests. As for India, the Hindu supremacist Modi government fiercely defends the colonization of Kashmir. Following the suspension in 2019 of Article 350 of the Indian Constitution, which granted Jammu and Kashmir very limited autonomy, the Indian government has advocated a settler colonialism reminiscent of the Israeli colonization of the West Bank.
As for U.S. imperialism and China’s reactionary policies, they can only exacerbate the instability of a region already scarred by colonial partition. To oppose the reactionary regimes in India and Pakistan, the workers’ movement must intervene in the situation, defend an independent perspective, and unite to oppose a war for which they will inevitably pay the price.
Originally published in Révolution Permanente on May 15.