China’s losses in the high-altitude 2020 Galwan Valley border clash with India - the deadliest confrontation between the two giants in over four decades - were much higher than reported with many soldiers drowning while crossing a fast-flowing, sub-zero river in darkness, new research claims.
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From the article: (Nothing new)
The researchers say the deadly June 15 battle was sparked over a temporary bridge, which Indian soldiers had erected across a stream of the Galwan River three weeks earlier, on May 22.
Indian and Chinese military officials had recently agreed to a “buffer zone” along the border in attempt to “de-escalate the crisis” amid rising tensions.
Indian officials have repeatedly claimed that China had been building “illegal infrastructure” inside the zone, including erecting tents and creating dugouts and had moved machinery into the area.
“According to a Weibo user alias name Qiang who claims to have served in the area, the PLA was creating infrastructure in this buffer zone, violating the mutual agreement and had been trying to expand its patrolling limits within the buffer zone since April 2020,” the researchers state.
(China state-run media outlet the Global Times has stated the “local border control situation was very clear” and that “the Galwan Valley region is Chinese territory”.)
The report states that on May 22 Indian troops, led by Colonel Santosh, Commander of the 16th Regiment of Bihar, “created a temporary walk-over bridge” over a stream of the Galwan River to allow troops to monitor Chinese activities.
Though PLA was constructing its own infrastructure in the buffer zone, the construction of a temporary bridge by Indian troops aroused strong opposition by the Chinese, report states.