Protracted conflict between India and Pakistan will mean tough choices for Russia and China

More than anything else, the visit was aimed at projecting and reaffirming the strength of the China-Russia relationship amid a turbulent external environment and shifting US policy. Despite the speculation around a potential rapprochement between Washington and Moscow amid the Trump administration’s outreach, Russia’s ties with the West remain difficult. Vladimir Putin has clear incentives to seek a rebalanced relationship with the US. But there is little certainty that any deal to that effect will be sustainable, given the deep antipathy towards Russia across the American domestic political spectrum. On the other hand, China believes it is locked in all-round strategic competition with the US. Xi articulated this clearly in March 2023 during the session of the National People’s Congress. China’s framing of its response to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs as a “protracted war” are also indicative of this, as are its responses to US policy with regard to Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific at large.

These concerns were reflected in three joint declarations that were issued after the Xi-Putin meeting. Each of these specifically underscore the threat perception with regard to the US, which Russia and China believe is pursuing a policy of “dual containment”. A key component of this, the two sides argued, is the expansion of NATO, including in the Asia-Pacific. In fact, both sides were blunt in articulating that “one of the strategic risks urgently needing elimination is the expansion of military alliances by certain nuclear-weapon states in sensitive regions surrounding other nuclear-weapon states”.

Despite this strategic convergence, analysts and observers have, from time to time, pointed to existing tensions in China-Russia relationship. One such uncomfortable issue is the divergences in their outlooks with regard to India-Pakistan relations. The cross-cutting geopolitical cleavages involving the four countries complicate the China-Russia dynamics.

Russia shares a “privileged strategic partnership” with India, rooted in the experiences of the Cold War years. New Delhi is also Moscow’s only major friend besides Beijing. This was evident in its reference to India, alongside China, as “friendly sovereign global centers of power” in its Foreign Policy Concept paper released in 2023. Iran or North Korea, while close to Russia, are outcasts in the international order without any economic clout. Notwithstanding the friction in India-Russia relations owing to New Delhi’s growing proximity and strategic convergence with Washington, bilateral relations remain strong. This has been evident in India’s resistance amid pressure from the West since the war in Ukraine began, as it continued to engage Russia. Moreover, Russia’s deep ties with India also serve as a strategic hedge vis-a-vis China.

The Russia-Pakistan relationship, on the other hand, inherited the troubled past from the Cold War years. As a treaty ally of the US, Islamabad not only served as the base for American surveillance of Soviet territory but also played a central role in launching the Mujahideen resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. India-Pakistan enmity only compounded Moscow’s calculations vis-a-vis Islamabad in the subsequent years. While Russia-Pakistan ties have improved since, the partnership is largely symbolic at present.

China, in contrast, has a deep and long-standing relationship with Pakistan. The China-Pakistan entente, which began in early 1960s was, in large part, a product of a shared sense of strategic antipathy vis-a-vis India. Since then, the two have formed a symbiotic relationship, which is led by close defence ties. Today, Pakistan depends on China to achieve parity in conventional terms vis-a-vis India. Meanwhile, China counts on Pakistan to keep India preoccupied on its western border, thereby complicating New Delhi’s resource allocation calculus and threatening a two-front confrontation.

As the India-Pakistan conflict escalated rapidly after Indian strikes inside Pakistani territory on May 7, both China and Russia called for restraint and an early diffusion of the situation. China underlined that the situation was “regrettable,” while calling on “both sides to act in the larger interest of peace and stability”. Russia also took a similar tone, expressing that it was “deeply concerned by the heightened military tensions” and called for “restraint”. There were, however, important differences in their description of the source of the problem. Russia was categorical in terming the Pahalgam attack as an act of terrorism, while Beijing eschewed such framing. In fact, it was only on Saturday after the ceasefire was agreed that the Chinese government acknowledged that the Pahalgam attack was an act of terrorism.

In any case, a protracted conflict between India and Pakistan will certainly mean tough choices for Moscow and Beijing. Beyond their different diplomatic stakes with India and Pakistan, Russia remains one of the largest weapons suppliers to India, while China is Pakistan’s dominant defence partner. A prolonged war would likely result in India and Pakistan pressuring each of them to rush supplies and fulfill pending orders. Of course, this also gives both Beijing and Moscow some leverage over Islamabad and New Delhi respectively. Nevertheless, given their own strategic and security challenges, it is likely that China and Russia would prefer avoiding a situation like this. From a strategic perspective too, a lengthy conflict in the Indian subcontinent might further strengthen the US’s role in the region, which would be a perverse outcome for both China and Russia.

Kumar is a research analyst with Takshashila’s Indo-Pacific Studies programme. Kewalramani is Fellow, China Studies and chairs the Indo-Pacific Studies programme at Takshashila Institution