US report says China used India-Pak hostilities as a live weapons trial: Report

A new extract from the 2025 Annual Report to Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) has raised strong concerns over Chinas expanding military role in the region, stating that Beijing opportunistically used the May 710, 2025, India-Pakistan clash as a live testing ground for its latest weapons and intelligence capabilities. According to the report, Pakistans military relied heavily on Chinese weaponry during the confrontation and reportedly leveraged Chinese intelligence, even as India retaliated to the deadly insurgent attack in Jammu & Kashmir that killed 26 civilians. The four-day conflict saw India and Pakistan strike targets deeper into each others territory than at any point in 50 years. The report notes that the Indian Army assessed that China provided Pakistan with live inputs on Indian military positions throughout the crisis. The report adds that Beijing used the conflict to test its own military capabilities, though Pakistan denied receiving such assistance and China neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. The report also said that characterisation of the May conflict as a proxy war would overstate China's role as an instigator. The document highlights Chinas deepening defence partnership with Pakistan ahead of the clash. In NovemberDecember 2024, both countries conducted the three-week Warrior-VIII counterterrorism drills, followed in February 2025 by the PLA Navys participation in Pakistans multinational AMAN exercises. Indian security analysts viewed these engagements as further evidence of Chinas growing strategic influence in Pakistan and a direct threat to Indias security environment. According to the USCC, Pakista-ns performance during the clash showcased Chinese platforms, with Beijing using the episode to test and promote systems relevant to both its border tensions with India and its expanding defence industry goals. China supplied 82% of Pakistans arms imports between 2019 and 2023. The report states that the May 2025 confrontation marked the first active combat use of Chinas modern systems, including the HQ-9 air defence system, PL-15 air-to-air missiles, and J-10 fighter jets, turning the conflict into a real-world field experiment. Barely a month after the clash, in June 2025, China reportedly offered Pakistan a major new defence package: 40 J-35 fifth-generation fighter jets, KJ-500 airborne early-warning aircraft, and ballistic missile defence systems. The same month, Pakistan announced a 20% increase in its defence budget, raising allocations to USD 9 billion, despite cuts in its overall national expenditure. In the weeks after the conflict, Chinese embassies publicly praised the successes of Chinese systems used by Pakistan, using the episode to bolster their global weapons sales pitch. The report notes that Pakistans claimed use of Chinese platforms to have allegedly shot down Indian fighter jets, though only three jets were reportedly hit and not all were Rafales, became a prominent talking point in Chinas diplomatic marketing. The report further cites French intelligence assessments that China launched a disinformation campaign to undermine the Rafales reputation and disrupt French arms sales. This included deploying fake social media accounts to circulate AI-generated and video-game imagery passed off as debris of Indian aircraft supposedly destroyed by Chinese weapons. According to the USCC, Chinese embassy officials even persuaded Indonesia to halt an ongoing Rafale purchase, boosting Beijings own push for J-35 sales in Southeast Asia. The USCC document warns that Chinas actions during and after the May 2025 clash underline a pattern of aggressive defence diplomacy, expanding military cooperation with Pakistan while exploiting India-Pakistan flashpoints to advance its strategic, technological, and commercial military objectives.