A report submitted to the US Congress has mentioned Pakistan’s “military success” over India during the four-day conflict in May this year.

“Pakistan’s military success over India in its four-day clash showcased Chinese weaponry,” said a report submitted to the US Congress on Tuesday by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, formed to report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the US and China.

Pakistan initially said it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat during the conflict, but later raised the tally to seven. Islamabad has denied any losses of its planes and says it hit 26 Indian targets after three air bases were targeted. US President Donald Trump, who continues to comment on the conflict, most recently said that eight planes were “essentially” shot down.

In its annual report, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission referred to the May conflict and said that China used it to “test and promote its own defence capabilities”.

The report submitted to Congress also highlighted China’s role in the conflict, saying that it drew global attention as “Pakistan’s military relied upon Chinese weaponry and reportedly leveraged Chinese intelligence”.

It also cited New Delhi’s claims of China helping Pakistan with “live inputs on Indian military positions throughout the crisis”, adding that “Pakistan denied these allegations, and China neither confirmed nor denied its degree of involvement”.

According to the report, China expanded its military cooperation with Pakistan in 2025, “compounding its own security tensions with India”.

In November and December 2024, China and Pakistan held the three-week Warrior-VIII counter-terrorism drills, and in February this year, China’s navy participated in Pakistan’s multinational AMAN drills, the report recalled, adding that these exercises highlighted “growing defence cooperation” between the two countries.

“India’s commentators viewed the drills as losses in their relationship with
China and as direct security threats to its territorial positions,” the report said.

Referring to the May conflict, the report said, “While [the] characterisation of this conflict as a ‘proxy war’ may overstate China’s role as an instigator, Beijing opportunistically leveraged the conflict to test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons, useful in the context of its ongoing border tensions with India and its expanding defence industry goals.”

The report also mentioned that as Pakistan’s largest defence supplier, China provided approximately 82 per cent of the country’s arms imports from 2019 to 2023.

The May 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 added.

It also stated that China reportedly offered to sell 40 J-35 fifth-generation fighter jets, KJ-500 aircraft and ballistic missile defence systems to Pakistan in June. “That same month, Pakistan announced a 20pc increase in its 2025–2026 defence budget, raising planned expenditures to $9 billion despite an overall budget decrease.”

“In the weeks after the conflict, Chinese embassies hailed the successes of its systems in the India-Pakistan clash, seeking to bolster weapons sales,” the report alleged.

It also mentioned allegations by the French intelligence of China initiating a
“disinformation campaign to hinder sales of French Rafales in favour of its own J-35s” and using “fake social media accounts to propagate AI and video game images of supposed ‘debris’ from the planes China’s weaponry destroyed”.

The conflict between Pakistan and India was sparked by an attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir, which New Delhi, without evidence, linked with Pakistan. Islamabad strongly denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation.

But, New Delhi launched deadly air strikes in Punjab and Azad Kashmir on May 7, marking the beginning of the four-day clash. After tit-for-tat strikes on each other’s airbases by the two sides, it took American intervention on May 10 for both sides to finally reach a ceasefire.