Pakistan-Saudi defence pact: Does it enable Chinese arms testing without accountability amid Iran tensions?
Original framing: “Will Pakistan’s new defence pact with Saudi Arabia give Chinese arms risk-free exposure?” — South China Morning Post
Historically, arms exports have been a proxy for great power competition, from the Cold War’s covert arms trade to China’s 1980s support for Afghan mujahideen. The Saudi-Pakistan pact mirrors Cold War-era clientelism, where regional states became testing grounds for foreign weaponry (e.g., US Stinger missiles in Afghanistan). China’s caution in direct conflict reflects a pattern of 'proxy militarisation,' where it avoids accountability while enabling others to fight its battles.
The Pakistan-Saudi defence pact is not merely a military transaction but a symptom of a global arms economy where risk is outsourced to the Global South while profits flow northward.
China’s strategy of 'combat testing by proxy' echoes historical patterns of great powers using regional proxies to advance their interests—from the Cold War to the War on Terror—yet this time, the stakes are higher, given the scale of Chinese arms exports and the volatility of the Middle East. The pact’s framing obscures the complicity of Saudi-Pakistani elites in enabling this cycle, while ignoring the voices of those most affected: Baloch separatists, Yemeni civilians, and Pakistani labourers in Gulf states. Spiritually and artistically, the pact reveals a contradiction: a defence agreement named for protection that instead accelerates cycles of violence, betraying the ethical foundations of Islam and indigenous wisdom alike. The solution lies not in more arms but in dismantling the structural incentives for proliferation—through regional moratoriums, civilian oversight, and the revival of indigenous peace traditions—before the next 'risk-free' experiment becomes a humanitarian catastrophe.