China, Pakistan, and the Indus: A Triad of Water and Warfare

While terrorism continues to remain a scourge in international politics, a solution to it is neither easy nor in sight. Various countries have chosen different responses to terrorism. The threat looms large over South Asia, given Pakistan’s track record in sponsoring terrorism and using it as a tool of foreign policy. In April this year, India yet again suffered at the hands of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, as 26 Indian civilians were killed in cold blood. One of the first responses from India was to put the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) into abeyance, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that ‘blood and water cannot flow together’. While this is a non-kinetic response, it showed India’s resolve to punish the perpetrators. In response, Pakistan’s National Security Committee declared that any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty will be considered as an Act of War and responded to with full force.

The 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) is the bedrock of water-sharing cooperation between India and Pakistan, regulating the use of six Himalayan rivers of vital importance to both countries’ agricultural and energy needs. The treaty was mediated by the World Bank, the agreement has survived decades of animosity, wars, and territorial wrangles. 

Although, the IWT came about during the Partition of 1947, when the Indus Basin’s linked system of irrigation was split between India and Pakistan. It was signed in Karachi on September 19, 1960, and the agreement gave the eastern rivers – Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi – to India and the western rivers – Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum – to Pakistan. However, it permitted India to use part of the water of the the western rivers for irrigation. India paid £62 million for Pakistan’s canal system in instalments, even after fighting a war with Pakistan in 1965 – a token of commitment to honouring the treaty. 

The Permanent Indus Commission, with representatives from the two countries, was constituted to manage the distribution of resources and joint projects. The treaty stands as an extraordinary testament of resilience, surviving three wars (1965, 1971 and 1999) and unrelenting tension over its source, in the Kashmir region. This endurance underpinned the IWT as a rare success of diplomacy, enabling water management to continue in a geopolitically fragile area despite mutual distrust.

The IWT has encountered many difficulties, despite being praised for its longevity. Pakistan has consistently protested India’s hydroelectric projects on the western rivers, including the Kishenganga (2018), the Baglihar (2000s), and the Ratle which is currently under construction, claiming that the plans violate the treaty’s provisions because they may alter water flows. 

India, on the other hand, insists that these “run-of-the-river” projects comply with the technical requirements of the treaty. International arbitration has frequently been used, exposing weaknesses in the treaty’s dispute-resolution procedures. Previously, the IWT has also been criticised for being out of date and for not addressing the effects of climate change or encouraging the development of joint basins. When India sent out a notice to amend the treaty in 2023, citing environmental and demographic pressures, Pakistan resisted, escalating tensions. The cooperative framework of the treaty has been strained by these tensions, which were exacerbated by India’s 2019 revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, leading to its suspension in 2025.

Given that terrorism is a non-traditional security threat and there are no laws that non-state violent actors like terrorists would adhere to, each state of the international order takes its own steps to respond to such threats. The halting of the IWT has also been pondered over previously by India, just as Pakistan-backed terrorism has bled India earlier. In 2016, India reportedly was mulling over its options about the IWT as a response to the Pakistani-sponsored terrorist attack in Uri. A peculiar situation emerged in 2016, as tensions between India and China escalated over water-sharing issues, on the Brahmaputra. Reports indicated that China was considering halting or diverting the flow of that major  transboundary river that originates in Tibet. The threat was linked to India’s review of the IWT. 

Currently, even though such a threat has not been made by China officially, China’s cyberspace is abuzz with how China must punish India by using the Brahmaputra River, in response for suspending the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan. A hashtag in Chinese that ‘India suddenly opened the floodgates without prior notice’ garnered over 58 million views and even became the top trending one in Chinese social media. As such, the suspension of the IWT has attracted substantial interest in the Chinese cyberspace. 

Two things are worth mentioning here. China calls its relationship with Pakistan an “all weather friendship”. Despite Chinese labourers being repeatedly killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, China has refused to call Pakistan out as a state sponsor of terror. There has to be a rationale for that. Secondly, the Chinese social media is monitored by the state through the Great Firewall and various government agencies such as the Cyberspace Administration. Platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and WeChat are subject to real-time surveillance, content censorship, and data access by the authorities. Posts that are deemed sensitive, criticising the government, or discussing banned topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre, for example, or promoting dissent are swiftly removed. The fact that the hashtags on the IWT are  trending and have been allowed to remain by the state indicates that the state deems them acceptable. Even in the past, there have been cases when what has trended on Chinese social media has been implemented by Chinese authorities at a later date. While the PRC has not officially made statements on the Indus Treaty issue, India must be aware of the trends on Chinese social media and assume that plans for protecting the ‘all-weather friend’ are being made. Unfortunately, blood and water are coerced to mix in great power politics, as well as in non-traditional warfare. 

(Views expressed are personal.)