China used Pakistan as a “borrowed knife” to cause pain to India and was providing all possible support to its all-weather ally during the four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in May.

Making this assertion here on Friday, Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt General Rahul R Singh also said India had to contend with three adversaries including Pakistan, China and Turkey during the conflict.

Moreover, China used Pakistan as “live lab” to test various weapon systems supplied to Islamabad, he said.

In an address at Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Singh also highlighted China’s ancient military strategy of 36 Stratagems and killing the adversary with a “borrowed knife” to buttress the point that Beijing extended all possible support to Pakistan to harm India.

India was actually dealing with three adversaries, he said, suggesting that besides Pakistan and China, Turkey was also playing a major role in supplying military hardware to Islamabad.

Addressing a seminar on “New Age Military Technologies” organised by industry chamber FICCI, Singh suggested that China used its satellites to monitor Indian military deployment as the Pakistan military was getting live inputs on it during the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO)-level phone talks.

The Deputy Chief of Army Staff, who looks after the Indian Army’s capability development and sustenance vertical, said Beijing’s support to Islamabad was not surprising as 81 per cent of the military hardware of the Pakistani armed forces are from China.

“He (China) would rather use the neighbour to cause pain (to India) than getting involved in a mudslinging match on the northern border,” Singh said.

“Pakistan was the front face. We had China providing all possible support. And there was no surprise because, if you look at the statistics in the last five years, 81 per cent of the military hardware that Pakistan is getting is all Chinese,” he said. Singh said Turkey also played an important role in providing support to Pakistan.

“We saw numerous drones coming and landing in the face of war, during the war, along with the individuals who were there,” he said.

The Deputy Chief of Army Staff said the “strategic messaging” by the Indian leadership was unambiguous, adding that the planning and selection of targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) was based on a lot of data.

On lessons learnt from the conflict, he said “The next important lesson is the importance of C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and civil-military fusion. There is a lot to be done as far as this domain is concerned,” he said.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.

The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10. New Delhi has been maintaining that India’s fierce counter-attack that day forced Pakistan to plead for ending the hostilities.

The Deputy Chief, meanwhile, said Pakistan received real-time inputs about India’s important vectors from China during Operation Sindoor.

“When DGMO-level talks were going on, Pakistan actually was mentioning that we know your... important vector is primed and it is ready for action. I would request you to pull it back. So, they were getting live inputs...from China,” Singh said.

Unleashing a fierce attack on China, the general cited the 36 Stratagems, a Chinese essay to illustrate schemes used in war, politics, and others. Calling Beijing the “good old victim” and citing one of the strategems ?- kill with a borrowed knife - Singh said instead of stepping on the actual field, it used Pakistan against India.

“China, of course, the good old victim, kill by a borrowed knife ...He would rather use the neighbour to cause pain than get involved in the mud-slinging match on the Northern Border,” the Army general said.

He also mentioned Turkey, which has repeatedly vowed its support for “brother” Pakistan since the Operation Sindoor. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan weeks after the conflict, in a show of Ankara’s resolute support for Islamabad.

Shehbaz thanked Erdogan for his “resolute support” against India, and the Turkish President stressed the importance of deeper cooperation in areas like intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism.