Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said the annual report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was a “severe setback” for diplomacy, as the report described the Pahalgam terror attack as an “insurgent attack” and hints at Pakistan’s success over India during Operation Sindoor.
In an X post, Jairam Ramesh targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing the report as “astonishing and beyond understanding” while asking the External Affairs Ministry to register a protest against it.
The Congress leader wrote, “The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has just submitted its annual report to the US Congress. The Commission set up jointly by the US Senate and House of Representatives has twelve independent members. The 2025 Annual Report is almost 800 pages long. The sections on pages 108 and 109 are simply astonishing and beyond understanding. It describes the Pahalgam terror attack of April 2025, orchestrated by Pakistan as an ‘insurgent attack.’ It speaks of ‘Pakistan’s military success over India’ in the four-day clash.”
Reminding US President Donald Trump’s claim of mediating between India and Pakistan, Ramesh criticised PM Modi over his silence.
President Trump has claimed 60 times (so far) that he had halted Operation Sindoor. The PM has kept completely quiet. Now comes this report of the US-China Economic and Security Commission of the US Congress that is simply unacceptable to India. Will the PM and the MEA register their objections and protest? Our diplomacy has suffered yet another severe setback,” the X post read.
The annual report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission looks at how China “opportunistically” used Pakistan’s military crisis to test its own defence capabilities.
Rather than recognising the Pahalgam incident as a terror attack, the report called the four-day clash between India and Pakistan a result “triggered by India’s response to a deadly insurgent attack that killed 26 civilians in its contested Jammu and Kashmir region.”
Noting that China has expanded its “military cooperation” with Pakistan in 2025, “compounding its own security tensions with India,” the report said, “Pakistan’s military success over India in its four-day clash showcased Chinese weaponry.”
The commission added that China claimed that its defence helped Pakistan take down three Rafale fighter jets, while France called it a “disinformation campaign” to hinder sales of Rafales.
“Pakistan’s use of Chinese weapons to down French Rafale fighter jets used by India also became a particular selling point for Chinese Embassy defence sales efforts, despite the fact that only three jets flown by India’s military were reportedly downed, and all may not have been Rafales.208 According to French intelligence, China initiated a disinformation campaign to hinder sales of French Rafales in favour of its own J-35s, and it used fake social media accounts to propagate AI and video game images of supposed ‘debris’ from the planes China’s weaponry destroyed,” the report read.
Looking at India’s relations with China, the report also noted that PM Modi’s visit to China during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit came in the backdrop of “tensions” after Trump imposed tariffs on the import of Indian goods.
“Prime Minister Modi’s attendance at the 2025 SCO summit held in Tianjin, China–his first time in China since the 2020 clash– drew attention amid tensions in India’s tariff negotiations with the United States. Xi and Modi held a private side meeting during which the two committed to build upon the agreement that China’s Foreign Minister Wang and his Indian counterpart, Foreign Minister Jaishankar, had made earlier in August. India and China agreed to conduct more high-level dialogue, work toward a border de-escalation agreement, expand economic cooperation, reopen flights between countries, and extend allowances for Indian citizens to go on pilgrimage into Tibetan regions into 2026, demonstrating both leaders’ interest in taking steps away from decoupling and toward rapprochement,” the report said.
