 I'm Samir Lalwani, senior expert with the South Asia program at the US Institute of Peace. The report I've been working on is called a Threshold Alliance, the China-Pakistan military relationship, which essentially looks at the growth of that relationship and the increasing depth of that relationship, particularly over the last decade. The relationship has been growing in all sorts of terms in economic, diplomatic, and military terms over the last decade. Economically, Pakistan relies a lot on China for loans, for investments, diplomatically for a lot of political cover and support in multilateral fora. But it's in the military domain where you're seeing a really steep increase in collaboration and cooperation when it comes to arms transfers, military exercises, and the prospects for Chinese military basing on Pakistan shores. So a Threshold Alliance is a relationship short of a mutual defense treaty, short of a formal alliance, but that has a lot of the material and technical components of that potential alliance. And the reason I think it's important is because I believe that China is starting to build these relationships that are short of formal alliances but have a lot of the functions that China could leverage in great power competition. I think one thing policymakers can do is acknowledge the prospect that China might be able to develop allies or partners in future great power competition. And the United States should be planning for this possibility, both in crisis but in peace time as well, that they'll have to deal with some of these partners and allies that will work with China. In particular, with Pakistan, I think it would be useful for the United States to clarify to Pakistan what the strategic consequences could be in the event that Pakistan allows China to conduct naval basing or military operations from its shores because those effects can be pretty profound. And at the end of the day, I think the United States has an interest in Pakistan remaining independent and for countries remaining independent in their foreign policy and not being coerced into decisions that they don't want to make. And so the United States would be able to maintain a relationship and be flexible and nimble enough such that if there are fissures in that relationship, it would be there to support those countries to maintain their independent foreign policy.