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Why Is China Downplaying Its Border Clash Casualties With India?
By refraining from turning its soldiers into national martyrs, Beijing is keeping its options open.
BY JAMES PALMER | JUNE 17, 2020, 5:25 PM
Indian Army vehicles drive on a road near the border with China in Ladakh, northern India on June 17. STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief. The highlights this week: Chinese media sidesteps the deadly clash at the border with India, parts of Beijing reenter coronavirus lockdown, and what to make of John Bolton’s revelations about Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.
How Many Chinese Soldiers Died in the Himalayas?
The bloody clash between troops on the disputed India-China border, which claimed at least 20 Indian soldiers’ lives and an unknown number of Chinese, is dominating Indian headlines this week—even as Chinese state media downplays the country’s most deadly military action in decades. The story has been relegated to fourth or fifth place in both Xinhua and the People’s Daily, which have led with President Xi Jinping’s phone call with his Ecuadorian counterpart and details of an upcoming China-Africa summit.
Weeks of clashes between Indian and Chinese troops culminated on Monday night in an angry meeting between patrols on a narrow ridge that grew into a brawl. Chinese and Indian patrols on the border customarily go unarmed to avoid escalation—but both sides turned to improvised weapons such as clubs, stones, and iron rods.
The conflict parallels clashes between Chinese troops and the Soviets in the late 1960s, when both armies used hand-to-hand weapons in brawls on the frozen river borders. But then, retrieving the injured was relatively easy. This time, 17 of the 20 killed on the Indian side died of their wounds or exposure to subzero temperatures in high-altitude terrain. Indian media reports as many as 43 Chinese deaths, supposedly based on intercepted transmissions, but that information is unreliable.
Why is China keeping quiet? India and China both have well-developed mythologies of national martyrdom in war, and the Indian soldiers who died are already filling that role. But it seems unlikely that China will even release the names of the dead. There is state hostility toward releasing any sensitive information—and especially for the opaque military. As indicated by the lack of media coverage, Beijing wants to keep its options open—and it doesn’t want to be trapped by public opinion calling for escalation. Deaths could also be read as a sign of weakness, especially if the Chinese side really did come off worse.
Is further conflict likely? Both sides say they want to de-escalate, with each casting the other as the aggressor and refusing to pull back its own troops. A wider conflict seems unlikely, given the range of crises both Beijing and New Delhi are facing—but this will permanently stain public feelings, especially on the Indian side. For more on the roots of the crisis and where it’s headed, see our explainer from yesterday, and read tomorrow’s South Asia Brief.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/17/china-downplaying-border-clash-india-military-pla-xi-jinping/
By refraining from turning its soldiers into national martyrs, Beijing is keeping its options open.
BY JAMES PALMER | JUNE 17, 2020, 5:25 PM
Indian Army vehicles drive on a road near the border with China in Ladakh, northern India on June 17. STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief. The highlights this week: Chinese media sidesteps the deadly clash at the border with India, parts of Beijing reenter coronavirus lockdown, and what to make of John Bolton’s revelations about Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.
How Many Chinese Soldiers Died in the Himalayas?
The bloody clash between troops on the disputed India-China border, which claimed at least 20 Indian soldiers’ lives and an unknown number of Chinese, is dominating Indian headlines this week—even as Chinese state media downplays the country’s most deadly military action in decades. The story has been relegated to fourth or fifth place in both Xinhua and the People’s Daily, which have led with President Xi Jinping’s phone call with his Ecuadorian counterpart and details of an upcoming China-Africa summit.
Weeks of clashes between Indian and Chinese troops culminated on Monday night in an angry meeting between patrols on a narrow ridge that grew into a brawl. Chinese and Indian patrols on the border customarily go unarmed to avoid escalation—but both sides turned to improvised weapons such as clubs, stones, and iron rods.
The conflict parallels clashes between Chinese troops and the Soviets in the late 1960s, when both armies used hand-to-hand weapons in brawls on the frozen river borders. But then, retrieving the injured was relatively easy. This time, 17 of the 20 killed on the Indian side died of their wounds or exposure to subzero temperatures in high-altitude terrain. Indian media reports as many as 43 Chinese deaths, supposedly based on intercepted transmissions, but that information is unreliable.
Why is China keeping quiet? India and China both have well-developed mythologies of national martyrdom in war, and the Indian soldiers who died are already filling that role. But it seems unlikely that China will even release the names of the dead. There is state hostility toward releasing any sensitive information—and especially for the opaque military. As indicated by the lack of media coverage, Beijing wants to keep its options open—and it doesn’t want to be trapped by public opinion calling for escalation. Deaths could also be read as a sign of weakness, especially if the Chinese side really did come off worse.
Is further conflict likely? Both sides say they want to de-escalate, with each casting the other as the aggressor and refusing to pull back its own troops. A wider conflict seems unlikely, given the range of crises both Beijing and New Delhi are facing—but this will permanently stain public feelings, especially on the Indian side. For more on the roots of the crisis and where it’s headed, see our explainer from yesterday, and read tomorrow’s South Asia Brief.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/17/china-downplaying-border-clash-india-military-pla-xi-jinping/
Typical bharti B.S
