New Delhi, May 11 -- It was widely known that China has emerged as the key supplier of weaponry for its iron brother Pakistan over the past decade accounting for over 80% of the country's military imports currently, but the first outing for some of these weapons came this week, in strikes and counter-strikes carried out by India and Pakistan. Pakistan's armed forces used, for the first time, the Chinese-made J-10C fighter jet and PL-15 missile.

Military ties between Beijing and Islamabad have grown since the early 1960s, at a slow pace initially but rapidly in the last decade or so. Defence cooperation is now a key component of the "China-Pakistan All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership". "The two sides underscored that strategic d...