Islamabad: As U.S.±China friction hardens into a new global fault line, Pakistan³one of the few states that still enjoys meaningful access in both Washington and Beijing³again finds itself in a role it played to historic effect half a century ago. At a time when most capitals are drifting into rival camps, Islamabads habit of hedging³call it balance, call it agility³looks less like opportunism and more like a rare diplomatic asset. If the aim is to keep competition from calcifying into confrontation, the Nixon±Mao precedent suggests that the road to pragmatic de-escalation may once more run through Pakistan.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit underscored this realignment in sharp relief. With its trademark choreography, the gathering placed Xi Jinping shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin to denounce Western ¬bullying practices®³a performance aimed squarely at Washington. Originally created to resolve post-Soviet border disputes in Central Asia, the SCO has matured into Beijings favored stage for projecting order across Eurasia. This years roster included nine former Soviet republics (Russia among them), as well as Turkey, Iran, Mongolia, Cambodia, Egypt, Myanmar, the Maldives, Nepal, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Vietnam. In a theatrical flourish, Kim Jong-Uns armored train rolled in for consultations with Xi and Putin³an unsubtle gesture of defiance.
Amid that wide cast, two neighbors³India and Pakistan³offered the clearest glimpse of Asias shifting power politics. The rivalry between them is anything but equal: Indias population is six times larger, its GDP an order of magnitude greater, and its trade with the U.S. far outweighs Pakistans. Geography also matters. China borders both states, but the relationships differ: with India, an uneasy frontier in the Himalayas prone to flare-ups; with Pakistan, a decades-long camaraderie resilient through wars, sanctions, and nuclearization.
For years, Washington wagered on India: ¬the worlds largest democracy,® a booming market, and a potential ¬net security provider® in the Indo-Pacific. The assumption was that New Delhi would, at least functionally, side with the U.S. in any great-power crisis. Pakistan, by contrast, was viewed mainly through the counterterrorism lens³its ties narrowed by the war in Afghanistan and the exhaustion that followed. Those assumptions now look less solid.
Donald Trumps second term³and the SCOs stagecraft³have scrambled that picture. Narendra Modi, having fallen out of favor with Trumps circle, used the summit to visibly pivot toward Xi and Putin. The optics were unmistakable: backslapping warmth and the suggestion of a trilateral bond. The shift wasnt mysterious. Trump leaned on Modi to de-escalate after Indias air clash with Pakistan, built ties with Pakistans Army Chief Asim Munir, pressured India over discounted Russian oil, and imposed a punishing 50 percent tariff. Against that backdrop, Modis SCO diplomacy looked less surprising than inevitable.
What follows is predictable. Tariffs breed retaliation, and retaliation hardens into habit. Even Indias boosters in Washington will struggle to square the old ¬security provider® narrative with a Delhi that courts Moscow and Beijing when it suits. Trump may still dangle ¬better tariff deals® for ¬my good friend Prime Minister Modi,® but the strategic consensus of old has slipped away.
Which brings the focus back to Pakistan. Unlike India, which resists any notion of subordinating itself to outside strategies, Pakistan has long managed dual relationships. With Washington: security cooperation, debt management, and diaspora ties. With Beijing: a deep, institutional embrace crystallized in the China±Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This duality makes Islamabad one of the few plausible intermediaries in a polarized landscape. Pakistan has leaned into that role at the SCO, strengthening its China ties without closing doors in Washington. The point isnt neutrality; its utility.
Skeptics rightly note Pakistans constraints: a nuclear state shaped by rivalry with India, adjacent to Afghanistans instability, wrestling with insurgency, debt crises, and domestic turbulence. Yet those very constraints often enhance its value as a messenger state. Great powers sometimes need intermediaries who can navigate tense corridors without being mistaken for proxies. Pakistan has played that role before.
The SCO spectacle should register in Washington as a warning. If India sees value in edging closer to Beijing, then building a U.S. strategy on the assumption of Indias alignment risks resting on sand. Pakistan, however, retains enough trust from both sides of the Pacific divide to serve as a channel when dialogue elsewhere falters. In an age of export controls, sanctions, and shadow energy trades, access may prove the most valuable commodity: knowing who will pick up the phone, who can carry a message, and who can convene a quiet conversation when public theater blocks the way.
History adds weight. Fifty-three years ago, Pakistan opened the secret channel that enabled Nixons trip to China and reshaped the global order. Todays China is no isolated power, and todays America is no Cold War hegemon, but the lesson travels: when Washington invests in a pragmatic rapport with Islamabad, it sometimes gains leverage unavailable elsewhere.
None of this requires romanticizing Pakistan or demonizing India. It requires acknowledging where incentives lie. New Delhi will keep calibrating between values and interests, tilting as needed for autonomy. Beijing will use the SCO and other forums to expand its sphere of partners. Moscow will play spoiler when it can. And Washington, if it wants to manage rather than be managed by U.S.±China rivalry, will need more than speeches about a ¬free and open Indo-Pacific.® It will need intermediaries who can move between adversaries without being dismissed as agents of either camp.
That work is rarely glamorous: debt relief, energy swaps, quiet sequencing of trust-building. It means recognizing CPECs sunk costs while pressing for transparency, guardrails, and third-country projects that ease perceptions of encirclement. It means using tariff spats not to grandstand but to create side doors for dialogue³on health, AI safety, climate resilience³even when main avenues remain blocked.
The SCO gathering is a reminder that the world is not waiting for Washington. India is bargaining hard. Pakistan is brokering where it can. And history suggests that the latter posture, though less flashy, is sometimes the more useful in preventing rivalry from tipping into disaster. If the U.S. wants a pressure-release valve in Asia, it should recall what it learned in 1971: sometimes the shortest path to a breakthrough runs through Islamabad³again.