China’s Central Military Commission, for the first time on February 19, released details of its soldiers who died in the violent border clash with Indian forces in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in June 2020.
State-owned People’s Daily, China reported that the commission had posthumously awarded honorary titles to four soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). A colonel, who led them and reportedly sustained serious injuries, was also conferred with an honorary title.
It was not immediately clear if there were more than four casualties on the Chinese side.
China’s military commission awarded Qi Fabao, the regimental commander from the PLA Xinjiang Military Command, the title of "Hero regimental commander for defending the border", Chen Hongjun with "Hero to defend the border" and granted the first-class merit to Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran, according to local media reports.
A violent confrontation had broken out in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 after more than a month of simmering tensions between Indian and the Chinese defence personnel. This has been pegged as the worst border conflict between the two Asian neighbours in around 45 years. The Valley was, and remains, one of the multiple friction points along the region’s de facto border called the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
As many as 20 Indian Army soldiers sacrificed their lives during the clash and many others were injured. There was an acknowledgement from the Chinese government that there were casualties on their side too. However, Beijing had not provided any details until now.
Hostilities have continued along the LAC with both sides having stationed heavy artillery and deployed fighter aircraft in close proximity to the demarcation line as a precautionary measure even as they work towards disengagement.
On February 11, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh informed Parliament that India and China have agreed to disengage on the northern and southern banks of the Pangong Lake – one of the friction points.
Latest satellite imagery shows that the ongoing disengagement process is underway and that bunkers and other installations are being vacated by the PLA.
In an interview with CNN-News18, Lieutenant General YK Joshi, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Indian Army’s Northern Command said India had not ceded any land to China in eastern Ladakh as part of the disengagement process.
However, Lt. Gen. Joshi said that there was a situation in late-August 2020 when the India-China standoff could have blown up into an armed conflict. “We were on the edge, we were absolutely on the brink. And those were very tense and very challenging moments for us,” he told the news channel.