Over the past three decades, the strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and Pakistan has evolved from a transactional, opportunistic relationship into a deeply integrated and strategic, economic and geopolitical alignment. For Beijing, Islamabad serves as a crucial regional proxy, providing a geographic conduit to the Arabian Sea via the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and acting as a counterbalance to India’s regional hegemo

Operation Sindoor, which India launched last year in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, marked the defining moment in India’s counterterrorism response. In that 88-hour-long conflict, India redrew the lines of deterrence, making the harbours of terrorism know that no sanctuary of terror across the border is safe and India has the capability and resolve to destroy and hit everything. Illustration by The Geostrata Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery famously remarked, “