China Talks Up Military Links w/Pakistan, Set To Raise Concerns In India

(MNI) London-Wires carrying comments from the Chinese Defence Ministry regarding military cooperation with Pakistan. States that the 'Chinese military [is] willing to work with Pakistani military to further deepen, expand practical cooperation. Chinese military willing to work with Pakistani military to safeguard regional peace, stability.' An increasingly close military relationship between Beijing and Islamabad is likely to raise security concerns in New Delhi, with India already concerned about the close economic links between China and Pakistan.

• Relations between India and Pakistan remain strained but have shown small signs of improvement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is due to travel to a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) foreign ministers in New Delhi on 4-5 May. In doing so he will become the first Pakistani minister to visit India since then-PM Nawaz Sharif's visit in 2014.
• India and China have engaged in sporadic low-level fighting along the contested Himalayan border between the two countries known as the Line of Actual Control. However, it is not just direct conflict between the two that poses risks.
• Indian media reports that a terrorist attack in Poonch in the contested province of Jammu and Kashmir that left five Indian soldiers dead was facilitated by the use of 'made-in-China' military hardware. The Indian Tribune reports that its sources within the Indian security services claim that “It began with pistols or other small arms, but China is now supplying sophisticated weapons, including armour-piercing bullets, and drones with improved payload capacity,”