New Delhi: A classified Pakistani diplomatic cable released in full by a US media outlet has a statement by a senior US state department official acknowledging that Washington viewed its relationship with India through “the lens” of China when assessing New Delhi's refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The document, identified as Cypher No. I-0678 and marked "Secret", records a March 7, 2022 luncheon meeting between Pakistan's then-ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan and US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, Donald Lu.

The cable has been at the centre of a political firestorm in Pakistan since former Prime Minister Imran Khan cited it as evidence of a US-backed conspiracy to topple his government. He was removed through a no-confidence vote on April 9, 2022.

The contents in the cable were first published by The Intercept in August 2023. Drop Site, staffed by the same journalists, has now released the original document as part of a longer investigation into how the US and Pakistan moved from mutual suspicion to alignment after Khan's removal. They said they had withheld the original document for source protection reasons and that it "can now be published in full, so it can be a part of the historical record".

The cable's most widely reported passages concern Lu's remarks on the no-confidence motion then pending against Khan.

Lu told the ambassador that "if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington" and warned that otherwise “isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States”.

Drop Site reports that national security adviser Jake Sullivan had called his counterpart Moeed Yusuf days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, urging him to persuade Khan to cancel a planned Moscow visit. Khan ignored the warning and was photographed shaking hands with Putin on February 24, the day Russian forces crossed into Ukraine.

Lu denied the characterisation of his remarks in testimony to a US House Subcommittee in March 2024, calling the allegations "not accurate”.

In the third page of the same diplomatic cable, the Pakistani envoy raised Washington’s alleged soft-pedalling of India’s position on Ukraine.

The Pakistani ambassador told Lu that Pakistan had observed his defence of India's position on Ukraine during a Senate Subcommittee hearing on US policy towards India held on March 2, 2022. The ambassador said it appeared the US was "applying different criteria for India and Pakistan".

Lu was described as "evasive". He acknowledged that US lawmakers' "strong feelings about India's abstentions in the UNSC and UNGA came out clearly during the hearing".

The ambassador pressed the point, noting that the US seemingly “expected more from India than Pakistan, yet it appeared to be more concerned about Pakistan's position”. Lu said Washington viewed the US-India relationship “very much through the lens of what was happening in China”. He then offered a prediction. While India had a close relationship with Moscow, “I think we will actually see a change in India's policy once all Indian students are out of Ukraine”.

Lu's "China lens" remark reflected the fundamental principle of the Biden administration's India policy.

By the date of the diplomatic cable in early 2022, Washington had elevated the Quad to a leader-level summit for the first time, announced the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology covering AI, quantum computing and semiconductors, and grown US defence sales to India to over $20 billion.

Lu told the same Senate hearing that India was the first foreign partner to receive the P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft and argued that "for every bullet, every radar, every fighter plane that we sell to India, that is one piece of defence equipment that we will not have to field ourselves in Asia". Congress pushed for a waiver of CAATSA sanctions over India's $5.43 billion purchase of Russia's S-400 air defence system, and the Biden administration granted it.

Since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, India has never condemned Russia for the invasion and has abstained on all UN resolutions criticising Moscow. With a decades-old relationship with Russia, New Delhi had also been wary of the West trying to isolate Moscow, something it perceived as pushing Russia further into China's embrace.

India increased its purchase of discounted Russian crude, with imports going from under 1% of its total oil imports before the war to about 40% by 2023-24. The Biden administration imposed no costs for any of this. But, the second Trump administration changed the equation.

Trump slapped tariffs of up to 50% on Indian goods, which included an additional 25% levy as a punitive measure for India’s continued purchase of Russian oil. India was the only country subjected to the additional tariff over Russian oil imports.

It was reduced to 18% in February 2026 after Trump claimed that Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil.

Trump has also shown no inclination to attend the Quad leaders' summit India was due to host, leaving the grouping in limbo.

He recently returned from a state visit to Beijing, the first by a US president in almost nine years, where he and President Xi Jinping discussed trade, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz crisis. He has often referred to the US-China relationship as “G2”.

There is still no sign of the US president visiting India for a Quad leaders’ summit, which should have actually taken place last year. The "narrative of India as a counterbalance to China has weakened under the Trump administration", Chatham House's Chietigj Bajpaee told CNBC.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s relations with the US have shifted dramatically since the diplomatic cable was written. A few weeks after India and Pakistan clashed for four days, Trump hosted Pakistani Army chief General Asim Munir at the White House, signalling a renewed warming of ties with Islamabad. The bonhomie has endured, with Pakistan now playing the role of an intermediary between the US and Iran.

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