The Tilting Triangle: Geopolitics of the China–India–Pakistan Relationship

Abstract

For more than six decades, the geopolitics of South Asia have been shaped by a symbiotic and triangular relationship involving India, Pakistan, and China. A succession of interstate conflicts has created two fundamental and enduring security structures, one rooted in India's partition and subsequent Indo-Pakistan wars (the “1947 structure”) and the other in a persistent and often antagonistic Sino-Indian rivalry, including a border conflict in 1962 (the “1962 structure”). During the Cold War, exogenous powers, including the United States and Soviet Union, sought to use or manipulate these structures to advance their political objectives. In the long term, however, the 1962 structure is likely to become the dominant security architecture in the region, a trend that can be attributed to China's growing military and economic power, Beijing's increasingly intimate relationship with Islamabad, and the Chinese navy's expanding reach into the Indian Ocean.