Authors : Harsh V. Pant | Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy

Originally Published: The Hindu

Published on: Jun 28, 2025

The Beijing-led Trilaterals are aimed at challenging India’s long-term interests

Last week, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh held their first trilateral meeting in Kunming, China. The discussions focused on furthering cooperation and exploring the possibilities of deeper engagement. This meeting closely follows another trilateral meeting between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, held in May, with the aim of extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and increasing cooperation. These trilaterals, led by China, come at a time of Pakistan’s little relevance to the region, India’s increasing relations with Afghanistan, and New Delhi’s deteriorating ties with Bangladesh. The use of trilaterals underscores China’s fresh attempts at making Pakistan a stakeholder in the region and keeping New Delhi preoccupied with immediate concerns.

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https://www.orfonline.org/research/a-china-led-trilateral-nexus-as-india-s-new-challenge

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Professor Harsh V. Pant is Honorary Member of the Romanian Institute for Europe-Asia Studies – IRSEA.

The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or view of IRSEA

* Professor Harsh V. Pant is Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Professor of International Relations with King's India Institute at King’s College London. He is also Director (Honorary) of Delhi School of Transnational Affairs at Delhi University. Professor Pant has been a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; a Visiting Professor at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania; a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Peace and Security Studies, McGill University; a Non-Resident Fellow with the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC; and an Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Australia-India Institute, University of Melbourne. Professor Pant's current research is focused on Asian security issues. His most recent books include India and Global Governance: A Rising Power and Its Discontents (Routledge), Politics and Geopolitics: Decoding India’s Neighbourhood Challenge (Rupa), America and the Indo-Pacific: Trump and Beyond (Routledge), New Directions in India’s Foreign Policy: Theory and Praxis (Cambridge University Press), India’s Nuclear Policy (Oxford University Press), The US Pivot and Indian Foreign Policy (Palgrave Macmillan), Handbook of Indian Defence Policy (Routledge), and India’s Afghan Muddle (HarperCollins). Professor Pant writes regularly for various Indian and international media outlets including the Japan Times, the Wall Street Journal, the National (UAE), the Hindustan Times, and the Telegraph.