India has detained a Chinese soldier on the Indian side of the remote Ladakh border, the Indian military said Saturday (Jan. 9).
The Indian military said in a statement that the Chinese communist soldier was detained by Indian troops after he crossed the border into the Indian side of the southern shore of Pangong Tso Lake on Friday (8). The statement said the PLA soldier’s border crossing is being handled in accordance with prescribed procedures, and the circumstances under which he crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are being investigated.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Communist Party’s Global Times, confirmed in a microblog post Saturday that a Chinese soldier was detained by the Indian side after getting lost in the western border area between China and India.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily also posted on its microblog Saturday that a soldier of the Chinese Communist Party’s border guard force was lost due to darkness and complicated terrain, and that the Communist Party’s border guard force first informed the Indian side of the situation after the incident and hoped that the Indian side would assist in the search and rescue; nearly two hours later the Indian side clearly replied that the soldier was found and would be returned to the Chinese side after consulting his superiors.
In June last year, a bloody clash between India and China broke out in the disputed Ladakh border area, in which 20 Indian soldiers died, while the Chinese Communist Party has not announced the number of casualties. The conflict has escalated since then, with both sides increasing their military deployments near the disputed border, which is currently in the midst of a freezing cold season.
To ease the tense standoff, India and China have so far held eight rounds of talks. The Russian-brokered meeting between India and China’s foreign ministers in Moscow on Sept. 10 last year reached a five-point consensus, but did not agree on the crucial issue of troop withdrawal. The two countries will also hold a ninth round of talks at the military chief level, the date of which has not yet been announced.
Recent Comments