Written after Operation Sindoor, the report talks about India’s defence priorities. “Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s defense priorities will probably focus on demonstrating global leadership, countering China, and enhancing New Delhi’s military power. India views China as its primary adversary and Pakistan more an ancillary security problem to be managed, despite cross-border attacks in mid-May by both India’s and Pakistan’s militaries,” the report says.
Following are excerpts from the report on Pakistan and China:
What US intelligence says about Pakistan
During the next year, the Pakistani military’s top priorities are likely to remain cross-border skirmishes with regional neighbors, rising attacks by Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and Baloch nationalist militants, counterterrorism efforts, and nuclear modernization. Despite Pakistan’s daily operations during the past year, militants killed more than 2,500 people in Pakistan in 2024.
Pakistan regards India as an existential threat and will continue to pursue its military modernization effort, including the development of battlefield nuclear weapons, to offset India’s conventional military advantage.
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Pakistan is modernizing its nuclear arsenal and maintaining the security of its nuclear materials and nuclear command and control. Pakistan almost certainly procures WMD-applicable goods from foreign suppliers and intermediaries. » Pakistan primarily is a recipient of China’s economic and military largesse, and Pakistani forces conduct multiple combined military exercises every year with China’s PLA, including a new air exercise completed in November 2024. Foreign materials and technology supporting Pakistan’s WMD programs are very likely acquired primarily from suppliers in China, and sometimes are transshipped through Hong Kong, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. However, terrorist attacks targeting Chinese workers who support China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects have emerged as a point of friction between the countries; seven Chinese nationals were killed in Pakistan in 2024.
What US intelligence says about China
China maintains its strategic objectives to be the preeminent power in East Asia, challenge the United States for global leadership, unify Taiwan with mainland China, advance the development and resiliency of China’s economy, and become technologically self-sufficient by mid-century.
China is rapidly advancing its military modernization and developing capabilities across all warfare domains that could enable it to seize Taiwan by force, to better project power in the western Pacific, and to disrupt U.S. attempts to maintain presence or intervene in conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
President Xi continues to publicly express concern about disloyalty and corruption in the PLA’s ranks, and in 2024 a long-serving admiral in charge of enforcing loyalty and ideological compliance across the PLA was removed and investigated for corruption. The dismissal resembles the abrupt removal in 2023 of China’s defense minister and senior PLA Rocket Force officers, reportedly because of corruption surrounding weapons procurement and nuclear modernization. In mid-March, press outlets identified a vice-chairman of China’s Military Commission—Gen He Weidong—as another senior target of anti-corruption investigations.
China’s nuclear warhead stockpile probably has surpassed 600 operational nuclear warheads. We estimate that China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030—much of which will be deployed at higher readiness levels for faster response times.
China’s space-related activities aim to erode U.S. space superiority and exploit a perceived U.S. reliance on space-based systems to deter and counter intervention in a regional military conflict. China is investing in space systems that enhance its own Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Targeting (C5ISRT) capabilities. China will continue to launch a variety of satellites that substantially enhance its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities; field advanced communications satellites able to transmit large amounts of data; improve its space-based positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities; and deploy new weather and oceanographic satellites.
China is improving PLA systems to operate further from China for longer periods and establishing a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to sustain deployments at greater distances, efforts that can potentially threaten U.S. global operations or international commerce during a conflict.
