Beijing accuses India of crossing border and ‘attacking Chinese personnel’ after New Delhi reports 3 of its troops killed

Beijing has accused India of “attacking Chinese personnel” across its border, after India reported an army officer and two soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops at the Galwan Valley in Kashmir on Monday.

The Indian Army said the soldiers were killed in a “violent faceoff” at the contested border with China. It added that senior military officials from both countries were meeting to diffuse the situation. 

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Indian troops crossed the border twice on Monday, “provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides.” He called on India not to take unilateral actions or stir up trouble.

"There was no firing,” an Indian army officer in the region told AFP. “No firearms were used. It was violent hand-to-hand scuffles."

The Indian army said that there were "casualties on both sides." The Chinese People’s Liberation Army "also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash," editor-in-chief of China's Global Times newspaper Hu Xijin said in a tweet on Tuesday.  

China and India have been involved a standoff in a number of positions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, part of Indian-controlled Kashmir. The two nations share a 3,488km border, and both countries reinforced their positions along the LAC following skirmishes in May. High level talks between the countries’ diplomats and army generals were held earlier in June in a bid to ease tensions. 

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