4 Chinese soldiers died in bloody clash on the border with India, China reveals

4 Chinese soldiers died in bloody clash on the border with India, China reveals

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The two sides fought with fists, stones and bamboo sticks studded with nails, in what was the deadliest border conflict between the two neighbors with nuclear weapons in more than 40 years. New Delhi said earlier that at least 20 Indian soldiers died during the fighting in the Galwan valley area.
On Friday, the official Chinese Army newspaper, PLA Daily, said that a battalion commander, Chen Hongjun, and three soldiers – Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran – died in the “fierce fight” for the defense of the border, and posthumous awards were given.
An award was also given to Qi Fabao, regimental commander of the PLA’s Military Command in Xinjiang, who was seriously injured in the confrontation, according to the report.

The PLA Daily did not reveal the ranks of the soldiers.

Twenty Indian soldiers killed after confrontation with China along the disputed border
According to the PLA Daily report, “foreign military” troops violated an agreement with China and crossed the border to the Chinese side to set up tents. The report also stated that when Qi led some PLA soldiers to negotiate, the Indian side mobilized more troops in an attempt to force Chinese troops to relent.

China and India blamed each other for the conflict.

An Indian army source previously told CNN that the dispute started over a Chinese tent that was built the night before the confrontation. Indian troops, according to the source, demolished it. The next day, Chinese soldiers armed with stones and bamboo poles with nails returned, the source said, and attacked unprepared Indian troops. CNN is unable to independently confirm this reporting of events.

Disputed frontier

India and China share a 3,379 km long border in the Himalayas, which in some places is poorly defined and heatedly disputed. Both sides claim territory on either side of it.

The June 2020 conflict erupted near Pangong Tso, a strategically important lake located some 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) above sea level, which extends over an area stretching from Indian territory from Ladakh to Tibet controlled by Chinese in the Greater Kashmir region, where India, China and Pakistan claim territory.

In 1962, India and China went to war over this remote and inhospitable piece of land, finally establishing the Royal Control Line (LAC), the border actually divided by Pangong Tso. However, the two countries do not agree on the precise location of LAC and both regularly accuse each other of overtaking it or trying to expand its territory. Since then, they have had a history of mostly non-lethal clashes over the border position.

In September, the two countries agreed to stop sending more troops to the border, after tensions escalated between New Delhi and Beijing. The situation was temporarily resolved, with both sides involved in several rounds of negotiations.

New satellite images show Chinese troops have dismantled camps on India's disputed border

But another “minor” confrontation broke out between the two sides in January, according to the Indian Army, although it said it “was resolved by local commanders according to established protocols”.

On February 10, the Ministry of Defense of China said the two countries began to split along the south and north coasts of Pangong Tso after reaching an agreement with India.

According to satellite images, China has withdrawn troops, dismantled infrastructure and vacated fields along the disputed border.

Satellite photos taken on January 30 by Maxar Technologies of the United States showed a series of Chinese deployments along Pangong Tso. In new images taken on Tuesday, dozens of vehicles and building structures have been removed, leaving empty grounds.

CNN’s Brad Lendon, James Griffiths and Jessie Yeung contributed to the report.

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