NEW DELHI: China says four of its soldiers were killed in last year’s border clash with Indian troops, which revealed for the first time the victims of the Himalayan melee that killed 20 Indians and caused tensions among neighbors with nuclear weapons.
India shared its vision of what happened shortly after the incident in June, and said its troops died in the bloody skirmish in which soldiers fought with rocks, clubs and clubs wrapped in barbed wire. China had been silent on casualty figures until Friday, when it announced the posthumous awards for the four soldiers.
When it made the announcement, China blamed India, saying its troops had “deliberately caused incidents” in an attempt to “unilaterally change the status quo of border control,” according to the PLA newspaper, its main military publication.
Tensions remained high for months between India and China, which share a 2,000-mile border. Fingers were pointed at each other to begin the fight, saying the other side was breaking the rules and limits set for troop movements.
According to Indian officials, the violence began after Indian soldiers arrived in an area of the Galwan Valley, on the border, to ensure that Chinese forces had been reduced under an agreement between the two sides. They found that Chinese soldiers remained and had begun to build a new structure on what India considers their side of the de facto boundary. This sparked an argument that sparked the bloody confrontation.