Update: 20 Indian Soldiers Killed in Deadly Border Clash With China

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Update: 20 Indian Soldiers Killed in Deadly Border Clash With China
By: Jeffrey Gettleman, Hari Kumar & Sameer Yasir - The New York Time - 6-16-20
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/w...12bed6ea3384a6

The troops were apparently killed by Chinese soldiers in close-quarter combat high up in the Himalayas, just as the two countries were trying to de-escalate tensions.

NEW DELHI — Twenty Indian Army troops were killed by Chinese soldiers late Monday in a clash along the disputed India-China border, Indian officials said, raising tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations.

It was the first time in decades that soldiers were killed in a skirmish along the border, which traverses freezing terrain high in the Himalayas, military experts said. It was not immediately clear how India would respond to China, which has a much more powerful military.

Preliminary reports on Tuesday indicated that the soldiers had not been shot, but had been killed in a brawl involving rocks and wooden clubs that was similar to fights that broke out last month along the border and seriously injured several soldiers on both sides.

An Indian military spokesman said that three Indian troops were killed during the fighting and 17 others later succumbed to injuries. Others were missing and feared captured.

Indian television channels reported that several Chinese soldiers had been killed, as well, citing high-level Indian government sources. But Chinese officials did not comment on that.

Indian officials said they were trying to de-escalate the situation. They had just indicated that tensions with China were calming down after Indian and Chinese troops had faced off at several points high in the Himalayas in the past few weeks. India seemed caught off guard by the new burst of violence, which the two sides blamed on each other.

“During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday night with casualties,” according to a statement early in the day in the Indian news media that was attributed to Indian military officials. “Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.”

In Beijing, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, said that Indian forces had twice crossed the border illegally on Monday and attacked Chinese personnel. He said the Chinese side had “lodged strong protests” but continued to work toward resolving the tensions between the two countries.

Indian military analysts said that the fight had erupted on Indian territory and it had involved a large number of troops from each side battling with rocks, clubs and their hands.

“This was an incident waiting to happen,” said H.S. Panag, a retired Indian general. “We were warning that the P.L.A. has come in, intruded in our area, and they were prepared for a limited border conflict or skirmishes,” he said, referring to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. “The situation was simmering since the last week of April.”

The violence is a continuation of a long-running dispute between India and China about the precise location of their jagged Himalayan border, known as the Line of Actual Control. In 1962, the two countries went to war over this line, which cuts through a desolate, sparsely inhabited landscape of rock and ice. Both sides maintain high-altitude military installations facing each other, and armed skirmishes continued through the late 1960s and mid-’70s, military analysts said.

The spark for the recent tensions seemed to have been a road to a remote air force base that the Indian Army is building through mountain passes in the Galwan Valley more than 14,000 feet above sea level. Military analysts say that the road is fully within Indian territory but that the Chinese are determined to frustrate India’s efforts to upgrade its military positions.

Last month, Chinese troops confronted Indian soldiers at several border points in the Himalayas, some more than 1,000 miles apart. Since then, both armies have rushed in thousands of reinforcements. Indian analysts say that China has beefed up its forces with dump trucks, excavators, troop carriers, artillery and armored vehicles, and that China is occupying around 250 square miles of Indian territory.

The packs of soldiers from the two countries who march up and down the mountains are under strict orders not to shoot at each other, but that doesn’t stop them from throwing rocks or battling with crude weapons or even their fists. In the last brawl, in May, several soldiers were seriously injured; some had to be airlifted to hospitals hundreds of miles away.

Videos and photos circulating on social media showed soldiers on both sides had even been captured, at least briefly Some Indian military analysts say the Chinese troops have used wooden clubs studded with nails.

Foreign-policy analysts say the increasing friction in the Himalayas is a product of a more forceful China stepping up efforts to defend its territorial claims across Asia. In recent weeks, the Chinese have sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South China Sea, swarmed a Malaysian offshore oil rig, menaced Taiwan and severely tightened their grip on the semiautonomous region of Hong Kong.

The confrontations with India fit “a broader pattern of Chinese assertiveness,” said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, noting that it was the fourth flare-up since China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, rose to power at the end of 2012.

About these writer(s):

Jeffrey Gettleman is the South Asia bureau chief, based in New Delhi. He was the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for international reporting. @gettleman • Facebook

Hari Kumar is a reporter in the New Delhi bureau. He joined The Times in 1997. @HariNYT

Sameer Yasir is a reporter for The New York Times, covering the intersection of identity politics, conflicts and society. He joined The Times in 2020 and is based in New Delhi. @sameeryasir

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20 Indian Soldiers Killed; 43 Chinese Casualties: ANI
By: Vishnu Sorn & Deepshikha Ghosh - NDTV News Update: 06-16-20
Re: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/20-s...ources-2247351

India said the clash arose from "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo" on the border.

Live NDTV report: https://www.ndtv.com/video/news/news...ies-ani-551884

New Delhi: Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the army said today, in the most serious escalation between the two countries along the border in five decades. News agency ANI claimed that sources had confirmed 43 Chinese soldiers have been killed or seriously injured because of intercepts, though the army's statement did not refer to this. A statement in the morning that confirmed the death of a Colonel and two jawans spoke of "casualties on both sides". India blamed the clashes on "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there", rebutting China's claims that Indian soldiers crossed the border.
Here are the top developments in this big story:

1. Colonel B Santosh Babu of the Bihar regiment, Havildar Palani and Sepoy Ojha laid down their lives for India, the army confirmed earlier today. "17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty at the stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries. Indian Army is firmly committed to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation," the army's fresh statement said tonight.

2. The statement opened by saying Indian and Chinese troops "have disengaged" at the Galwan area where they earlier clashed on the night of June 15/16, indicating that they do not expect any fresh violence in the area.

3. India said the clash arose from "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo" on the border. "India is very clear that all its activities are always within the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control. We expect the same of the Chinese side," said foreign ministry spokesperson Anurag Shrivastava.

4. The clash took place just as Chinese troops were getting ready to move away from a location per an agreement that was part of recent talks between the two sides to defuse tension. The Colonel was reportedly assaulted with stones and Indian soldiers retaliated, which led to close unarmed combat for several hours. The soldiers disengaged after midnight.

5. Beijing, in an aggressive statement, accused India of crossing the border, "attacking Chinese personnel". China's Foreign Ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying India should not take unilateral actions or stir up trouble.

6. The only admission of casualties on the Chinese side came from the editor of their government mouthpiece Global Times. "Based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash. I want to tell the Indian side, don't be arrogant and misread China's restraint as being weak. China doesn't want to have a clash with India, but we don't fear it," tweeted Hu Xijin, Editor-in-Chief of Global Times.

7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with military chiefs twice as India discussed a response to the escalation.

8. For more than six weeks, soldiers from both sides have been engaged in a stand-off on at least two locations along the Line of Actual Control -- the 3,488 km de-facto boundary between India and China, and rushed additional troops to the border. They have been facing each other at the Galwan River, which was one of the early triggers of the 1962 India-China war, and at the Pangong Tso -- a glacial lake at 14,000 feet in the Tibetan plateau.

9. As part of the talks to defuse tension, the Chinese Army pulled back its troops from the Galwan valley, PP-15 and Hot Springs. The Indian side also brought back some of its troops and vehicles from these areas.

10. AFP quoted Indian sources and news reports as suggesting that Chinese troops remained in parts of the Galwan Valley and of the northern shore of the Pangong Tso lake, which caused the clash. China has been upset about the Indian construction of roads and air strips in the area, say diplomats. The government has pushed for improving connectivity and by 2022, 66 key roads along the Chinese border will have been built. One of these roads is near the Galwan valley that connects to Daulat Beg Oldi air base, which was inaugurated last October.

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Note: In field conflicts it depends on which side of the media you read. Both sides tend to favor their intentions vr's those of their adversaries. Regardless conflicts are never really good especially when men are lost during these events. Let's hope they can resolve their differences and get back to a calmer situation. But this line in the sand has been an issue between these two for quite some time. I doubt it will ever be really get resolved as its been an ongoing issue like I said for sometime now.

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