By: Lt Col JS Sodhi (Retd), Editor, GSDN
On July 04, 2025 Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh, the Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Indian Army in a seminar in New Delhi candidly spoke of Pakistan receiving live updates of the Indian Army’s vectors from China, as the two nuclear-armed neighbours were embroiled in the 88-hour military confrontation from May 07-10, 2025. The General Officer also mentioned of China using Pakistan as a live laboratory for testing its weapons.
Little earlier, on June 19, 2025, officials of China, Pakistan & Bangladesh met in Kunming to discuss forming a new grouping aimed at boosting regional connectivity and cooperation. The Kunming meet came close on the heels of a China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral in May 2025 which resulted in the thawing of Pakistan & Afghanistan’s turbulent relations since Taliban 2.0 returned to power on August 15, 2021.
The messaging is clear. Efforts are on at a break-neck pace to create an alternative to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which has been comatose after its Kathmandu summit in September 2014 where Pakistan, Nepal & Sri Lanka had proposed including China as a full-fledged member of SAARC, to which India had objected. After 2014 no SAARC summit has been held.
The new South Asian alliance sans India, which is in the pipeline and can be officially announced anytime soon, aims to sideline India in its own neighbourhood.
On the face of it, any non-military alliance should not raise hackles. However, when China gets involved in forming non-military alliances, the issue acquires an underlying military overtone. In all non-military alliances that China has been pivotal in creating after Xi Jinping has become China’s President in 2013, there has been a latent military aim.
The most prominent case in point is the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) which on the façade aims for infrastructure development but has military aims ingrained deeper. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is the flagship project of the BRI. Included in the CPEC is the Gwadar-Xinjiang Corridor which is a 3000-kilometer road linking China’s Xinjiang region to the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, which would obviate China’s “Malacca Dilemma”. For China, the Gwadar-Xinjiang Corridor is the jugular vein in case the Malacca Strait was to be ever blocked by the Indian Navy or the US Navy.
China’s planning of encircling India by the sea-route is complete. With the Gwadar port of Pakistan, the Hambantota port of Sri Lanka and the Cox Bazar port of Bangladesh firmly in the Chinese grip and PLA activity having been noticed in the Laamu Atoll of Maldives and Kyaukphyu island of Myanmar, the String of Pearls as the Chinese maritime strategy of encircling India is complete.
While China & Pakistan have been in a tight embrace since 2013, the fleeing of Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh on August 05, 2024 gave the opportunity China was looking for, to encircle India by the land-route. Sheikh Hasina during her being in power for 15 years had been inclined towards India and had firmly resisted the Chinese pressure to sway away from the Indians.
But after August 05, 2024, Bangladesh has openly gravitated towards China. Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s ruler since August 2024, not only eyed the seven north-eastern states of India but also invited China to expand its influence in the region in a statement on April 01, 2025, that further damaged the India-Bangladesh relations which have been on a downhill since August 2024.
On May 27, 2025 came reports of China rebuilding the Lalmonirhat airport in Bangladesh which is just 20 kilometres from the strategic 22-kilometres-wide Siliguri Corridor of India, also known as the Chicken’s Neck, which connects the seven north-eastern Indian states with the balance of the country.
Of the seven countries that comprise South Asia, China has signed BRI with five excluding India and Bhutan. China doesn’t have a formal group alliance with the South Asian countries though one-on-one bilateral agreements exist.
China which is one of the principal founders of BRICS & SCO alliances which are non-military in nature, but has always tried using these forums for furtherance of its core interests. The reason that China hasn’t been successful in using BRICS & SCO for military interests is because of the presence of India in these two forums.
However, the new South Asian alliance, though officially will be an economic alliance, will be fully utilised for China’s military interests as India will not be made part of it. It is then the encircling of India by the land-route will be put into effect by China, though a major portion of it has already been done. The 3488-kilometre-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) between China & India and the 740-kilometre-long Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan & India have been totally integrated by China & Pakistan because of their close military ties that encompasses all the six domains of modern warfare ie Land, Sea, Air, Cyber, Electromagnetic Spectrum & Space which are commonly known as Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) or Full Spectrum Operations (FSO).
China is the only country in the world which in 2014 has stated that its military is prepared to fight in all the six domains of modern warfare. Till date no other country has expressed so. Not even, the USA which had propounded the Full Spectrum Operations Doctrine in 2001 and has the biggest defence budget at US$ 1 trillion, has intimated its readiness to fight in all the six domains of war.
To the six domains of modern warfare, China has added the seventh domain-Water! On July 09, 2025 Pema Khandu, the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh said China’s mega dam being built on Medog on River Brahmaputra (known as River Yarlung Tsangpo in China) is a ticking water bomb and poses an existential threat. The dam being built at a cost of US$ 137 billion is to be completed by 2030.
USA is clearly rattled by China’s military might. On April 12, 2025 Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary warned that China’s hypersonic missiles could destroy the 11 aircraft carriers of the US Navy in just 20 minutes. He further stated that internal war games of the US military indicated the USA losing to China. War games are conducted in all militaries the world over to assess the readiness of military strategies and are designed to simulate real-war scenarios.
The flagging of the grave danger that China poses to the US military which for long as been regarded as powerful and potent, is a clear warning to the world and specially those countries that face the Chinese threat. Ignoring or underestimating China’s military prowess, will be detrimental and devastating.
The China Challenge
While India has always had a clear victory over Pakistan in all the military confrontations with Pakistan in 1947-49, 1965, 1971, 1999 and 2025, it is the China challenge that poses difficulties ahead.
India lost the war against China in 1962 and as on date China is thirty years ahead of India in military preparedness. General Manoj Naravane (Retd), the 28th Chief of the Army Staff, Indian Army in his article in The Print on August 07, 2023 has expressed concern over the result of the two-front war that China & Pakistan will wage on India.
Much water has flowed since this article was published in 2023. After the regime change in Bangladesh in 2024, it is unlikely that Bangladesh will ever have normal ties with India again due to the close proximity that Bangladesh now has with both China and Pakistan. Nepal too is now firmly in the Chinese grip. On December 05, 2024 Nepal and China inked the framework for BRI cooperation, a good seven years and seven months after both the countries had signed the MoU on BRI. This development formally endorsed Nepal’s involvement in BRI opening floodgates for Chinese investments in Nepal.
General Anil Chauhan, the Chief of the Defence Staff of the Indian Armed Forces on July 08, 2025 remarked that the convergence of interest between China, Pakistan and Bangladesh will have implications for India’s stability and security dynamics.
Last year, Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command on October 28, 2024 stated that China is conducting the largest military buildup in world history. Early this year, on January 08, 2025 Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, the Indian Air Force Chief expressed concern over increased militarisation by China and the rapid pace at which the Chinese defence technology is growing.
On November 06, 2024 China announced the successful testing of Death Star, a weapon system which combines pulses of microwave radiation into a single powerful beam that can destroy enemy satellites in space. Also, on June 22, 2025 China achieved unprecedented breakthrough in satellite communication by using a 2-watt laser to transmit data at 1 Gbps thereby maintaining high-quality signal over 36,000 kilometres, without the need for complex infrastructure on the ground.
China on December 22, 2024, placed a massive government order of 1 million lightweight kamikaze drones to a private Chinese drone manufacturer Poly Technologies, be delivered by 2026. On April 21, 2025 China started mass production of humanoid robots with 11 manufacturers in China given confidential specifications and strict timelines, thereby signalling intent for defence use.
India is now staring at a war with China and Pakistan in which Bangladesh and Nepal will fully support China – whether it is militarily or infrastructure use, that time will reveal. But support rendered during a war can’t certainly be termed as an act of neutrality. China’s planning of encircling India both by the sea-route as well as the land-route is nearing fructification.
An often-asked question is that why did China not openly support Pakistan militarily in the recent India-Pakistan Conflict 2025 when the Pakistanis were being hammered badly by the Indians? The answer is pretty simple. China will not get embroiled in any military confrontation till it wages the war for Taiwan in 2027 as Taiwan is China’s first and foremost military aim.
Another question that is generally asked in various fora is that China lost its last war with Vietnam in 1979. It has been over 46 years that China has not taken part in any military confrontation. So why worry about China’s military prowess now? The answer to this question too is pretty simple. China has heavily invested in technology in the last four decades. As on date, China leads in 57 of the 64 critical technologies in the world. And, the USA is leading in the balance seven technologies. In the future wars that China will wage non-kinetic warfare will precede kinetic warfare. Once non-kinetic warfare has unleashed mayhem and chaos, only then will kinetic warfare start which will be for a short duration as the critical infrastructure of the country being attacked will be crippled due to non-kinetic warfare.
On July 09, 2023, the US President Joe Biden stated that China will wage a war for Taiwan and South Tibet. China calls Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet. The Director of National Intelligence, USA in both its Annual Threat Assessments reports of 2024 & 2025 has predicted China, Pakistan and India inching towards war.
Whatever terminology be given to the war that is on India’s horizon that is a decade away in 2035, whether one-front reinforced war, two-front war or three-front war, China stands as a formidable military challenge, not only to the USA but to India as well, as the first three military targets with timelines for China are Taiwan in 2027, Spratly Islands in 2029 and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in 2035.
China’s interest in Arunachal Pradesh started from 2007 when it became the world’s third biggest economy and two years later in 2009, it started issuing stapled visas to the residents of Arunachal Pradesh desirous of visiting China. Since 2017, China has renamed 92 places in Arunachal Pradesh five times in 2017, 2021, 2023, 2024 and on May 14, 2025 just a couple of days after the ceasefire of the India-Pakistan Conflict.
Adding to China’s discomfiture with India is the announcement of His Holiness The Dalai Lama about his successor. The tensions between China and India will increase further after the successor is announced.
India has exactly one decade to increase its economic and military preparedness, for China is India’s main threat. Pakistan & Bangladesh are the subsets of this main threat.
The Way Ahead for India
Reduce trade with China: India needs to reduce its trade with China. For every dollar worth of trade, a part of it China is using to strengthen its military which in the times ahead will wage a war on India. It is indeed ironical in 2020 when the Galwan Valley Clash took place between China & India in which 20 Indian Army soldiers were killed in action, the trade that year between India & China stood at US$ 87.5 billion. The trade volumes kept on increasing year-on-year till 2023 when it peaked at US$ 136.2 billion. However, in 2024 the trade between the two nations dipped to US$ 127.8 billion. India has to further reduce its trade with China.
Increase in Defence Budget: India’s defence budget has been reducing as its percentage of GDP since 2019. From 2.5% of the GDP in 2019, the defence budget of India has reduced to 1.9% of the GDP. Chanakya had quoted centuries ago that from the strength of the treasury, increases the strength of a nation’s army. With China announcing to supply latest weaponry to Pakistan which includes the fifth-generation J-35A fighter aircrafts while plans are afoot to induct the sixth-generation J-36 and J-50 fighter aircrafts in the Chinese Air Force (known as PLAAF), the Indian military needs more money. On July 07, 2025 the Indian Defence Secretary RK Singh stated that the defence expenditure would be increased from 1.9% to 2.5% of the GDP.
In-house defence technologies: In the event of a nation going to war, what will matter is domestic defence production and defence technologies so that in case of any supply chain disruptions, the war production isn’t affected. While Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India initiatives have proved very successful for the Indian defence sector, but India is still heavily dependent on foreign technologies. In the last 15 years, India has imported about US$ 20 billion worth of weapon systems but no worthwhile Transfer of Technology (ToT) has ensued. This is because most nations are wary of ToT.
To obviate, reliance on imported defence technologies two aspects need immediate consideration. One, to have increased number of Doctorates (PhD) in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM). Two, increase the budget for Research & Development (R&D) as percentage of the GDP. R&D plays a major role in a country becoming a manufacturing hub, apart from business-friendly laws, low taxes and skilled manpower.
The world’s two biggest manufacturing hubs ie China & USA are also the world’s two top nations in having the largest PhDs in STEM. In 2019, China produced 49,498 PhDs in STEM and USA produced 33,759 whereas India produced 700 PhDs in STEM. Of these 700, a whopping 70% have renounced Indian citizenship. The last known figures available in public domain of Indian PhDs in STEM are of 2019. By 2025 China is projected to have 77,179 STEM PhDs which would be nearly double of the 39,959 projected STEM PhDs of USA the same year.
The figures for spending on R&D also show startling facts. According to a study conducted by the Indian government think-tank Niti Aayog in 2022, while USA spent 2.9% of its GDP on R&D, China spent 2% of its GDP and India spent 0.7% of its GDP on R&D. The R&D spending as percentage of GDP has dipped to 0.64% of the GDP for India in 2024 whereas for China it has increased to 2.68% and for USA to 3.5% of the GDP. Interestingly in 2024, Israel’s spent 5.4% of its GDP on R&D.
Conclusion
On May 18, 1998 the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes had rightly remarked China being India’s main threat. So much was the political pressure on George Fernandes that he had to withdraw his statement five years later on May 04, 2003. In hindsight, George Fernandes was absolutely correct. China is indeed India’s main threat.
About the Author
Lt Col JS Sodhi (Retd) is the Founder-Editor, Global Strategic & Defence News and has authored the book “China’s War Clouds: The Great Chinese Checkmate”. He tweets at @JassiSodhi24.
