Kashmir is of strategic importance. As long as India occupies it, it blocks easy communications between Pakistan and its Chinese ally. A Pakistani Kashmir renders China a much more significant military threat to India.
Ah, I understand, thanks for clarifying.
Why would China be allied to a theocracy when they are godless communists, and vice versa? Politics makes strange bed fellows, and all that.
One nit: PakistanKashmir has a contiguous border with China. The Karakoram highway was built as a physical expression of the ties between Pakistan and China. Not much trade takes place over the road but it's a symbolic connection.
You may remember the much derided reports of Chinese troop movements in that area last fall. Probably not the numbers reported by D****, but possibly a move by China to stop Jihadis fleeing Northern Afghanistan/Kashmir entering China if the US had taken a whoopa** strategy to the region.
Recently, pakistani papers reported that a Uighur Leader, fighting with the Taliban, had been turned over to the Chinese by the Pakistanis.
Dog_Gone, i think China took over that part, called Aksai Chin when it invaded and occupied Tibet in 1959.