The Chinese military admitted on Friday that four of its soldiers were killed last year in bloody clashes with Indian forces along their shared border in the high mountains.
This is the first time that Beijing has admitted to having suffered losses in the deadliest incident to occur between the two Asian giants in nearly 45 years.
The announcement, more than six months after the bloody hand-to-hand fighting, is expected to help the world “understand the truth, who was right and who was wrong, about this incident,” a spokesperson said. speech of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying.
However, the delay also seems to reflect the profound opacity of the Chinese army and fears about the potential domestic and international fallout from this clash.
Violence erupted in June 2020 in the Galwan Valley, in the Ladakh region. India immediately announced that 20 of its men had been killed in the battle in which soldiers killed each other with fists, stones, clubs and other improvised weapons to avoid the use of firearms .
It was also believed that China had lost men, but Beijing refused to say more, explaining that it did not want to further heighten tensions.
Friday’s admission comes after lengthy negotiations between the two countries.
An Indian army officer said, on condition of anonymity, that Chinese and Indian forces began to withdraw from the northern and southern shores of Pangong Lake on February 10.
Further talks scheduled for Saturday will focus on withdrawing other sectors.
The Chinese toll was announced by the official military publication, which said the four victims were martyrs. Posthumous honors were given to the four men for losing their lives “in a clash with intruding foreign forces,” it was added without mentioning India directly.
In the days immediately after the clash, informal reports cited 45 casualties on the Chinese side. More recently, an Indian official said at least 14 Chinese soldiers were injured, including eight who later died.
Chinese spokesman Hua accused India of having “repeatedly exaggerated and magnified the record, distorted the truth and deceived public opinion.” Now (the Chinese military) has released a report on the incident to reveal the truth ”.
Tension began to build in early May in the Karakoram Mountains, when Indian and Chinese soldiers ignored their verbal warnings to each other. Scuffles then broke out on the north shore of Pangong Lake.
By June, friction had spread north, to Depsang and the Galwan Valley, where India had built a military road along the disputed border. Both countries have deployed tens of thousands of men supported by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
Each camp accused the other of having provoked the explosion of violence, which radically altered relations between the two countries.
A border war between China and India in 1962 spilled over to Ladakh and ended in an uncomfortable truce. The two countries have agreed not to attack each other with guns.
The line of control stretches from Ladakh in the west to the state of Arunachal Pradesh in eastern India, but which China fully claims. It is interrupted where Bhutan and Nepal come between India and China.
According to China, the actual border is 3,488 kilometers long, but India claims it is much shorter.
– Par Ken Moritsugu et Aijaz Hussain, The Associated Press
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