China Releases Galwan Clash Video, Shows Confrontation With Indian Troops

New Delhi:

Dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers are seen in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in a new video of last year’s border faceoff tweeted by Chinese state media.

The video showing the confrontation between Indian and Chinese soldiers in June last year comes after China officially acknowledged it also suffered casualties in the violent faceoff, and named four officers and soldiers who died in the border clash. India believes over 30 Chinese soldiers were killed in Galwan. Twenty Indian soldiers laid down their lives for the country in the clash.

A tweet by Chinese state media analyst Shen Shiwei alleges Indian troops “trespassed into Chinese side”. The Chinese state media video – clearly another attempt at propaganda – shows a large group of soldiers from both sides crossing a river in biting cold and meeting on the rocky banks, where some of them are seen pushing each other to go back. As night falls, soldiers from both sides are seen with flashlights, batons and shields standing on the edge of a cliff. There is much shouting in the dark.

The Galwan Valley clash between dozens of soldiers of India and China took place when Chinese soldiers prevented Indian soldiers from marching up to their traditional patrolling point in the area, which had also seen clashes in the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

India and China have pulled back troops from the south and north banks of the bitterly contested Pangong Lake area high in the western Himalayas. Top military officers of both sides are scheduled to meet to discuss further disengagement.

But it is unclear when the disengagement process will extend to other areas in eastern Ladakh, along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The Chinese side is keeping its troop presence in north bank of Pangong Lake to east of “Finger 8”. Reciprocally, Indian troops will be based at their permanent base at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near “Finger 3”.

Structures built by both sides since April 2020 in both north and south banks of Pangong Lake area have been removed and landforms restored.