Friday, March 29, 2024

Sensational: China had lost 42, and not 4 soldiers, in Galwan Valley clash

China lost 42 soldiers, and not four as it had said, during the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, an Australian newspaper “The Klaxon” has reported

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lost its many soldiers after they had fallen and drowned while crossing a fast-flowing, sub-zero river in darkness in the clash which was the deadliest between two neighbours India and China in four decades. 

The Galwan Valley is in the eastern part of the Kashmir region on a loosely-defined border between the two Asian giants. 

It was hand-to-hand combat in sub-zero temperatures in the night of June 15-16. 

India, on its part, had confirmed 20 of its soldiers dead. China, on its part, had fudged its numbers, as per the report. 

Yet, the attention was aroused on China’s casualty after it announced posthumous medals to four of its soldiers who had died in the Galwan Valley. 

China had gone to some length to hide its casualty. It sacked a journalist of Economic Observer for questioning the number of PLA casualties.

The report is a year-long investigation claims the newspaper. “What was told by China to the world were mostly fabricated stories,” said the report. 

“Many blogs and pages have been culled by (Chinese authorities) but digital archives of mainland China reveal a different story,” the report states.

The report also claims that Chinese have posted a fake video which shows the skirmish of a day (June 6) while the actual clash had happened in the night (June 15,2020). 

“The PLA soldiers didn’t even have time to wear water pants. They decided to cross the icy water of the river in pitch dark…The river rose suddenly and injured comrades kept slipping and (being) washed downstream”.

The Indian Government has claimed China broke protocol and the 1996 agreement by arming soldiers with lethal weapons, including iron rods, batons wrapped in barbed wire and “clubs embedded with nails”.

Indian officials have provided the BBC with an image of weapons it says Chinese soldiers used during the battle.

In its 2020 year-end review, the Defence Ministry of India said China had used “unorthodox weapons”.

Footage of the daylight confrontation published by Chinese media – which the researchers say was of June 6 – show Chinese soldiers more heavily outfitted, wearing body armour, neck shields and large helmets which can cover the face against attack.

Tensions have eased somewhat since June 2020, though experts say the Galwan Valley battle had the effect of further strengthening the so-called Quad security alliance between the US, Japan, India and Australia.

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