With Pakistan navigating a labyrinth of economic distress, regional volatility, and diplomatic inertia, Sharif’s presence in Beijing was as much an act of necessity as it was of strategic positioning. Yet, while the summit offered a momentary elevation of Pakistan’s diplomatic profile, it simultaneously exposed the structural fragility of its foreign policy apparatus and the limitations of multilateral forums as instruments of reconciliation.
The China-led summit that brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif into the same room was less a moment of genuine engagement than a careful rehearsal of long-familiar positions. Historically, encounters of this kind have been constrained by the unresolved Kashmir dispute and by the legacy of collapsed dialogues, from Agra in 2001 to Ufa in 2015, each of which promised recalibration but dissolved under the weight of mistrust. Diplomatically, China’s role as convener is significant: it seeks to keep both rivals within the fold to safeguard its regional projects, especially the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, while India uses such forums to project itself as a responsible stakeholder and to underline its counterterrorism credentials. Modi’s pointed invocation of terrorism at the summit was as much a signal to Beijing and Central Asian capitals as it was a rebuke to Islamabad. Geographically, the summit underscored the paradox of South Asia’s strategic location, with India anchoring Indo-Pacific strategies and Pakistan acting as China’s gateway to the Arabian Sea, yet both locked in a bilateral hostility that compromises wider regional cooperation. In this sense, the summit functioned less as a catalyst for dialogue than as a ritualized performance in which entrenched antagonisms were merely reframed within the multilateral stage.
Perhaps most emblematic of this tension was the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the same summit. In any other context, the attendance of both South Asian premiers at a single event might have sparked hopes for thaw or backchannel diplomacy. Instead, the collective tenor of commentary surrounding their co-presence may best be described as restrained realism. Far from heralding a diplomatic breakthrough, the gathering unfolded strictly according to script, reinforcing the entrenched froideur in India–Pakistan relations. There was no contact, no gesture, and certainly no dialogue. Pakistan’s participation, though dutiful and diplomatically correct, yielded no movement in the bilateral deadlock. The optics of studied avoidance—particularly against the backdrop of the Pahalgam incident—served only to underline the depths of mutual distrust. Modi’s direct and unflinching invocation of terrorism, made pointedly in Sharif’s presence, was not a subtle signal but a deliberate hardening of the rhetorical line. If anything, the summit served as a stage for reiterating positions, not rethinking them.
For Islamabad, the trip was as much about economic sustenance as geopolitical symbolism. Reeling under fiscal constraints and ever-growing dependence on external support, Pakistan’s outreach to Beijing remains its most viable—perhaps only—diplomatic constant. But the dynamics are shifting. China, too, has grown more transactional in its approach. While rhetorical affirmations of “iron brotherhood” persist, Beijing has signalled increasing discomfort with Pakistan’s fiscal mismanagement, security unpredictability, and bureaucratic dysfunction surrounding CPEC implementation. Sharif’s visit, in this light, was an act of reassurance: a pledge of continuity, and a plea for patience.
Experts have drawn attention to the contrasting diplomatic postures of the two South Asian leaders. Modi arrived in Beijing with the confidence of a rising regional power—measured, assertive, and globally integrated. His interventions were aimed less at Pakistan and more at reinforcing India’s strategic centrality to China and the Global South. Shehbaz Sharif, by contrast, projected the image of a premier burdened by domestic fragility and international dependence, whose foreign policy is still reactive rather than strategic. While India used the summit to consolidate its presence in multipolar configurations, Pakistan appeared primarily to be seeking validation and relief.
The simultaneous presence of both leaders in China also underscores the paradox of modern diplomacy: even adversaries must share the same stage. Multilateralism today functions as both theatre and buffer—allowing coexistence without contact, and proximity without progress. While such forums theoretically provide an opportunity for quiet diplomacy, neither Islamabad nor New Delhi appears inclined toward recalibration. The Pahalgam incident, and the narrative battle it reignited, only further narrowed the already minimal space for engagement.
What the summit ultimately revealed is the extent to which South Asia’s geopolitical impasse has been normalized. The region continues to produce bold economic visions while remaining hostage to hardened nationalisms and unresolved conflicts. And in that context, Shehbaz Sharif’s presence in Beijing becomes both a symbol and a symptom: a symbol of Pakistan’s enduring reliance on China, and a symptom of its shrinking diplomatic agency.
Absent legal reform, institutional clarity, and a coherent external strategy, Pakistan’s foreign policy will continue to operate from a position of vulnerability. Resetting the axis, in this sense, demands more than summit appearances—it requires a wholesale rethinking of how Pakistan engages with its neighbours, its partners, and itself.
