At a minimum to this writer, the commencement point seems to be to figure which front is the driver and which the follower. Or, in other words, which country is leading the threat politics against India and which is the acolyte. If you analyse the whole dynamics dispassionately, it would be clear that China leads the threat politics against India and Pakistan follows it. But considering that Pakistan initiated all the four wars with India and that China did not actively participate in them suggests that the China-Pakistan alliance against India is more complex. The alliance gives each party freedom of action, or rather, Pakistan, being the smaller power, has some freedom in confronting India, but the limit is placed by its ability to absorb Indian counter-action. How this works in reality is that China will make provisions for Pakistani activity against India upto a point, beyond which Pakistan operates at its own risk.
