The Chinese Army may have withdrawn from parts of eastern Ladakh but there is no let-up in propaganda from across the LOC despite the ongoing disengagement exercise.
The PLA made a belated admission on Friday that four Chinese soldiers were killed in the fierce clash with the Indian Army in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June last year. This is the first such acknowledgement from the PLA.
However, this is contrary to India’s claims that at least 45 Chinese soldiers were killed in the clashes at Galwan.
China's military authorities have also honoured two officers and three soldiers, including the four who received the awards posthumously, for defending the country's western border, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
In a concerted attempt at misinformation, the Chinese government-affiliated media agency Shen Shiwei has also released a propaganda video of the clash between the Indian Army and the PLA in June last year. The one-and-half-minute video, posted on Shen Shiwei’s official Twitter account, shows scores of Indian and Chinese soldiers skirmishing in a water body reportedly located in Galwan. It also strives to create the impression that the Indian troopers had gradually trespassed into the Chinese side.
The propaganda has been unleashed even as the tenth round of Corps Commander-level talks is scheduled to start at 10 am at the Moldo border point on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control.
This will be the first engagement between the two sides at a senior level after conclusion of the disengagement process in Pangong lake areas, sources said. A top officer in the security grid confirmed to a TV channel that on the table at Moldo on Saturday morning there will be resolution of issues at Depsang, Gogra Hot Springs, CNN (Charding Ninglung Nallah) track junction at Demchok and Patrolling point 15.
“Earlier the Chinese side was reluctant to discuss Depsang while the Indian side was clear that disengagement will be at all friction points. So now that the Pangong Tso disengagement has happened and verification done by both sides, we move to phase 2 which involves resolving other points of dispute. We want to resolve all issues, all friction points to be attended to," the officer said.
