“The worst border clash between India and China in more than 40 years." This is how the New York Times described the violent face-off between the Indian and Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley on June 15-16, in which 20 Indian army personnel lost their lives.
The Chinese side also reportedly suffered casualties. However, the exact number remains unclear.
Also Read: At least 20 army personnel killed in Galwan valley face-off
Earlier in the day, the Chinese government’s mouthpiece, Global Times had quoted China’s foreign minister as saying “Indian troops on Mon. seriously violated the consensus of the two sides by illegally crossing the border twice and carrying out provocative attacks on Chinese soldiers, resulting in serious physical clashes”.
The developments were extensively covered by news media across the world.
Here’s what major global news agencies think:
“Neither PM Modi nor President Xi want a war, but neither can relinquish their territorial claims either,” Ashley J Tellis, international security expert, told The New York Times.
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People's Daily and PLA Daily, the official newspapers of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) did not extensively cover the incidents. Global Times reported it on the sixteenth page.
China's official media broadly buries news of the worst clash on the India China border in 50+ years. Not mentioned in People's Daily and PLA Daily, the official papers of the Party and PLA (unless I missed it buried in a corner somewhere). Global Times Chinese carries on p 16. pic.twitter.com/MFU10XDGGD— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) June 17, 2020
The Guardian's world affairs editor Julian Borger wrote about how tensions between two nuclear weapons states "could spiral out of control".
Borger noted: “The timing of the incident may be connected to the weather. The melting snows of spring provide an opportunity for aggressive moves. The pandemic may also have played a role. It led to India putting off military exercises, and an extra motive for Beijing to look for distractions from its own failures in governance.”
The BBC quoted observers as saying the development was “an extraordinary escalation”.
Vipin Narang, a security studies professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told the BBC, "Once fatalities are sustained, keeping everything quiet becomes hard on both sides. Now public pressure becomes a variable".
"The scale, scope and swathe of the pressure across the border is seemingly unprecedented," Narang added.
Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, in her The Washington Post column, wrote: “The dissembling in Ladakh should teach us an unforgettable lesson: China looms as a great threat in many real and potentially devastating aspects for India. Pakistan may infiltrate India by sending armed terrorists into Kashmir, but China has infiltrated India by gaining a powerful role in the economy and markets.”
The developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — the de-facto border between the two countries in the region — were also covered by Singapore’s Channel News Asia and The Straits Times, which cited analysts as saying the border troubles with China “were clearly far more serious than visualised.”
Taiwan News covered the developments with a report from an Indian news agency.
Read our complete coverage on the India-China border tension
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