China has acknowledged for the first time that it extended technical support to Pakistan during its four-day conflict with India in May 2025, the South China Morning Post reported.
In an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV aired on Thursday, Zhang Heng, an engineer from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, recounted the conditions in which he worked with Pakistani forces during the conflict. The engineer is associated with the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, according to the newspaper.
“At the support base, we frequently heard the roar of fighter jets taking off and the constant wail of air-raid sirens,” Zhang was quoted as saying. “By late morning, the temperature was already approaching 50 degrees Celsius [122 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a real ordeal for us, both mentally and physically.”
Zhang said that the motivation of his team was to ensure that their equipment could “truly perform at its full combat potential”, according to the South China Morning Post.
Tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad escalated in May last year when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.
The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
In July, the Indian Army said that Pakistan had been receiving real-time intelligence from China about India’s important military deployments during the four-day conflict in May.
Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh, the deputy Army chief (capability development and sustenance), had said that India was effectively up against three adversaries during the conflict, with Pakistan leading the front, China offering extensive support and Turkey playing an important role by providing drones “along with trained individuals who were there”.
Also read:
- China shared live inputs with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor: India’s deputy Army chief
- Modi in China: New détente or a progressive trajectory?
The Indian Army said that in the last five years, 81% of the military hardware that Pakistan received was Chinese. “[China] is able to test [its] weapons against various other weapon systems that are there, so it’s like a live lab available to them,” Singh had said.
Edited by Sneha
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!