New Delhi: Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi claimed on December 30 that Beijing “mediated” between India and Pakistan during their four-day long military conflict earlier this year, joining US president Donald Trump in seeking credit for the cessation of hostilities.Delivering his year-end speech at the Symposium on the International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations in Beijing, Wang Yi for the first time explicitly used the term “mediated” to describe China’s role. He listed the “tensions between Pakistan and India” alongside other global hotspots where Beijing claims to have intervened to maintain peace.“Following this Chinese approach to settling hotspot issues, we mediated in northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue, the tensions between Pakistan and India, the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand”. In April 22, terrorists killed 26 people in the tourist town of Pahalgam, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based terror groups India responded on May 7 with “Operation Sindoor,” launching drone and missile strikes against terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and mainland Pakistan. There was retaliation and counter-retaliation for four days, before ceasefire was announced on May 10.In July, Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Capability Development and Sustenance), Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh had stated that Pakistan’s military actions were bolstered by unprecedented real-time assistance from China.The Chinese foreign minister’s assertion now directly competes with Trump’s narrative. The US president has repeatedly taken sole credit for ending the war, asserting that his threat of tariffs on both nations forced a ceasefire within 24 hours.Earlier, India had rejected the US president’s claims, maintaining that the May 10 ceasefire was a purely bilateral result achieved through direct communication between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs).