After US President Donald Trump, China has claimed credit for mediating peace between India and Pakistan during the military conflict earlier this year, despite New Delhi’s pushback.
New Delhi has rejected China’s claims of mediating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during the military conflict earlier this year. Sources in the Indian government reiterated that it was Islamabad that requested a truce following Operation Sindoor, and there was no third-party mediation.
The clarification came after China echoed US President Donald Trump’s claims, with its foreign minister projecting Beijing as a peace negotiator between India and Pakistan during the May conflict.
“India’s position on mediation has always been clear. There was no mediation that took place after Operation Sindoor. India has always maintained that there can be no third-party intervention. Pakistan requested India’s DGMO (Director General of Military Operations) for a ceasefire,” sources told NDTV.
China’s Claims
Like Trump, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed credit for mediating peace in several warring regions, including India and Pakistan and Cambodia and Thailand.
“This year, local wars and cross-border conflicts flared up more often than at any time since the end of WWII. Geopolitical turbulence continued to spread… To build peace that lasts, we have taken an objective and just stance and focused on addressing both symptoms and root causes,” Wang Yi said, speaking at the Symposium on the International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations in Beijing.
“Following this Chinese approach to settling hotspot issues, we mediated in northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue, the tensions between Pakistan and India, the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand,” he added.
India’s Stand
New Delhi has maintained that the military conflict between India and Pakistan, which started on May 7, was resolved through direct talks between the DGMOs (Director General of Military Operations) of the armies of the two countries.
At the May 13 press briefing, the Ministry of External Affairs had said, “Regarding ceasefire and what sort of role other countries played, etc. See, the specific date, time, and wording of the understanding were worked out between the DGMOs of the two countries at their phone call on 10th May 2025, commencing at 15:35 hours.”
India has also been consistently maintaining that there is no place for any third-party intervention in matters relating to India and Pakistan.
China’s Support To Pak During War
China “opportunistically” used the India-Pakistan conflict in May to “test and promote” its defence capabilities, according to a bipartisan US commission’s annual report released last month.
The report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission claimed that Beijing leveraged the four-day conflict, from May 7 to 10, to “test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons, useful in the contexts of its ongoing border tensions with India and its expanding defence industry goals”.
“This clash was the first time China’s modern weapons systems, including the HQ-9 air defence system, PL-15 air-to-air missiles, and J-10 fighter aircraft, were used in active combat, serving as a real-world field experiment,” the report said.
China then reportedly offered to sell 40 J-35 fifth-generation fighter jets, KJ-500 aircraft, and ballistic missile defence systems to Pakistan in June, the report said.
In the weeks after the conflict, Chinese embassies also praised the “successes” of its systems in the India-Pakistan clash, seeking to “bolster weapons sales”, the report, which is based on committee hearings and research that includes publicly available information and media reports, said.
China also sought to downplay India’s assertion that Beijing used the conflict as a “live lab,” declining to directly answer the charges made by Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Rahul R Singh.
Gen Singh said China’s strategy during Operation Sindoor was based on its ancient military strategy of “36 stratagems” and killing the adversary with a “borrowed knife” to buttress the point that Beijing extended all possible support to Pakistan to cause pain to India.
