China releases footage of its bloody border clash with India last June

China‘s military has revealed that four of its soldiers were killed in a high-mountain border clash with Indian forces last year, the first time Beijing has publicly conceded its side suffered casualties in the deadliest incident between the Asian neighbours in nearly 45 years.

The announcement on Friday, coming more than six months after the bloody hand-to-hand fighting, should help global audiences ‘understand the truth and the right and wrong of the incident,’ Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

Yet the delay also appeared to reflect China’s deep culture of military secrecy, as well as concerns over the potential domestic and international fallout from the bloodshed.

India announced it had lost 20 of its soldiers in the June battle. This undated handout photo released by the Indian Army on February 16 shows Chinese soldiers and tanks during military disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at the India-China border in Ladakh

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of state newspaper The Global Times, posted a video purporting to show Chinese regimental commander Qi Fabao confronting an Indian soldier. Qi was wounded during a border clash with India last June, and four Chinese soldiers died, China has confirmed

Immediately after the clash atop a high ridge on June 2020 in the Ladakh region’s Karakoram Mountains, India announced it had lost 20 of its soldiers in the battle that saw fists, clubs, stones and other improvised weapons used to avoid a firefight.

China was believed to have also suffered casualties but did not provide any details, saying it didn’t want to further inflame tensions. The announcement that it did indeed lose soldiers comes now that the two sides are engaged in a phased pullback from their original positions following multiple rounds of negotiations.

The People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper said Friday that the four killed were named as official state martyrs and awarded other posthumous honors.

It said the title of ‘border-defending hero’ was conferred on Battalion Commander Chen Hongjun, while Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran received first-class merit awards. It attributed their deaths to fighting in ‘a clash with trespassing foreign military personnel,’ without mentioning India directly.

Qi Fabao, a regimental commander from the PLA Xinjiang Military Command who was wounded in the clash, was awarded the title of ‘Hero regimental commander for defending the border.’

In this photograph provided by the Indian Army, army officers of India and China hold a meeting at Pangong lake region in Ladakh on the India-China border on February 10

In this file photo taken on July 4, 2020, Indian soldiers drive vehicles along mountainous roads as they take part in a military exercise at Thikse in Leh district of the union territory of Ladakh

China’s state broadcaster CCTV shared a 2015 interview with Qi on Friday. In the video, the weeping commander recalled taking care of a wounded soldier.

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of state newspaper The Global Times, also posted a video purporting to show Qi confronting an Indian soldier. In the undated clip, a man said to be Qi shouting at his enemy: ‘If you don’t want to fight, then get out of here’. It is unclear if the argument led to the fatal combat last June.

‘Regimental commander Qi Fabao roared on the far-flung country borderline. I think as long as the country needs, a man should live like (Qi and the others) and die like them,’ Hu wrote on his account on Twitter-like Weibo.

Earlier, unconfirmed reports had put the number of Chinese dead as high as 45, and Lt. Gen. YK Joshi, who commands the Indian Army’s Northern Command, said Indian observers counted more than 60 Chinese troops being taken away on stretchers, though it wasn’t clear how many suffered fatal injuries.

Joshi told Indian station News18 that Chinese forces had appeared unwilling to make concessions until Indian forces occupied commanding heights on Aug. 29-30. An agreement to begin pulling back was reached Feb. 10.

‘This disengagement is happening because we had taken the dominating position on the Kailash range. So, now the purpose has been achieved, we are going back to status quo ante April 2020,’ Joshi told the station.

An Indian army convoy move along a highway leading to Ladakh in the June 18, 2020 picture

Separately, an Indian security official said Friday that the military estimates at least 14 Chinese soldiers were wounded, eight of whom later died. That assessment was based on the number of stretchers used to remove the injured on the night of incident, input gathered from the Chinese forward hospital and field reports from the ground.

Another security official offered a similar account, saying at least 12 Chinese soldiers were ‘seriously’ wounded in the incident.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with government regulations.

The tense standoff in the Karakoram mountains began in early May, when Indian and Chinese soldiers ignored each other’s repeated verbal warnings, triggering a shouting match, stone-throwing and fistfights on the northern bank of Pangong Lake, which is marked by eight contested ridges where rivers flow into the waterbody.

By June, frictions escalated and spread north in Depsang and Galwan Valley, where India has built an all-weather military road along the disputed frontier. Since the clash, both countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the de facto border called the Line of Actual Control, or LAC, with troops settling in for the harsh winter.

Each side accused the other of instigating the violence, which has dramatically changed the India-China relationship.

Responsibility for the clash ‘doesn’t lie with China,’ Hua told a briefing in Beijing on Friday. She said China has ‘exercised great restraint, reflecting China’s tolerance and commitment as a responsible power.’

‘However, the Indian side has repeatedly exaggerated and hyped the casualties, distorting the truth and misleading international public opinion. Now the PLA Daily has published a report on the incident to reveal the truth,’ Hua said.

China’s announcement on Friday should help global audiences ‘understand the truth and the right and wrong of the incident,’ Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said

Relations between the two countries have often been strained, partly due to their undemarcated border. They fought a border war in 1962 that spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce marked by additional clashes. Since then, troops have guarded the undefined border while occasionally brawling. The two countries have agreed not to attack each other with firearms.

The fiercely contested control line separates Chinese-held and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. It is broken in parts where the Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan sit between India and China.

According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long, while China says it is considerably shorter. As its name suggests, the LAC divides the areas of physical control rather than territorial claims.

China remains committed to ‘resolving disputes through dialogue and maintaining peace and stability in the border area,’ Hua said. ‘We hope to work with the Indian side to … maintain peace and tranquility in the border area and promote the long-term healthy and stable development of relations between the two countries.’