People are joking, but I think India genuinely sees the current global chaos as the best opportunity to establish Akhand Bharat. Pakistan's government is weak and substantially compromised - the assumption that they'd go to total war vs. India and start throwing nukes over Kashmir is not realistic, IMO. The Muslim world in general has been greatly weakened by recent events and there will be no one riding to Pakistan's rescue; not even China as Pakistan's relationship with China is probably at its worst period since it began.
India's demographics are strong and there is thus both an opportunity and an urgency to make use of it. When you have tons of people and not enough work / resources for them, what do you do? That's right. Fight for more living space.
I believe Pakistan’s strategic value to China rests on three pillars: access to Afghanistan, infrastructure leverage through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and military deterrence of India. There are problems with all three pillars at this point.
First, the Taliban. China has now built direct relations with the Afghan regime, bypassing the indirect channel with Islamabad. It no longer needs Pakistan to have relations with Kabul.
Second, CPEC. Once considered the crown jewel of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is now seen in Chinese policy circles as a costly liability. Gwadar Port, a planned rival to Dubai, remains underdeveloped, marred by insurgency, local discontent, and unpaid contractors. A project that was meant to showcase China’s global ambitions now reflects its geostrategic limitations.
Third, military leverage against India. Pakistan retains its usefulness in countering India’s strategic air capability, but the cost of associating with a militarized and increasingly unstable regime where jihadist ties permeate state structures is growing.
What Beijing fears most is not Indian retaliation. It is the spillovers of Islamism. Especially in Xinjiang, where it has spent decades suppressing Islamic extremism. The Talibanization of Pakistan’s security apparatus is a warning sign, not a call to action.
During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, Islamabad waited in vain for Chinese military intervention. It never came.
According to Andrew Small’s article, “The China-Pakistan Axis,” a Dawn editorial published in 1972 offered a sobering analysis: “Had we not assumed that we would receive unlimited Chinese support, regardless of our aims and behavior, the country might have been saved from humiliation and defeat.” Since then, this pattern has not changed much. Beijing offers diplomatic cover, economic leverage and strategic coordination, but not military intervention.
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