{"id":28070,"date":"2020-06-20T13:33:08","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T08:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=28070"},"modified":"2020-06-20T13:33:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T08:03:08","slug":"china-claims-galwan-valley-hits-out-at-india-for-allegedly-changing-status-quo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=28070","title":{"rendered":"China claims Galwan Valley, hits out at India for allegedly changing status quo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The foreign ministry accused India of \u2018unilaterally\u2019 building roads, bridges and other facilities in the Galwan Valley region.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China on Friday claimed the entire Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the site of the violent June 15 clashes, including areas that are currently on India\u2019s side of the Line of Actual Control. A statement by Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian was issued hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an all-party meet that no outsider was inside Indian territory in Ladakh nor had any border post of the Indian Army been captured by outside forces during the face-off with Chinese troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Galwan Valley is located on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control in the west section of the China-India boundary,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cFor many years, the Chinese border troops have been patrolling and on duty in this region. Since April this year, the Indian border troops have unilaterally and continuously built roads, bridges and other facilities at the LAC in the Galwan Valley. China has lodged representations and protests on multiple occasions but India has gone even further to cross the LAC and make provocations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An army convoy moves along the Srinagar-Leh National highway on June 17 | Photo Credit: PTI<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Galwan Valley has always been under India\u2019s control. It has not figured in China\u2019s map since 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India has not yet responded to China\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese spokesperson also gave a detailed account of Monday\u2019s clashes, which claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian personnel in the worst violence on the border since 1975. Zhao blamed India for the incident, saying New Delhi \u201cdeliberately made provocations\u201d to unilaterally change the status quo of control and management of the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the early morning of May 6, the Indian border troops, who have crossed the LAC by night and trespassed into China\u2019s territory, have built fortification and barricades, which impeded the patrol of Chinese border troops,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe Chinese border troops have been forced to take necessary measures to respond to the situation on the ground and strengthen management and control in the border areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao claimed Indian troops had violated the agreement reached during commander-level talks between both sides and crossed the Line of Actual Control. \u201cThey even violently attacked the Chinese officers and soldiers who went there for negotiation, thus triggering fierce physical conflicts and causing casualties,\u201d he alleged. \u201cThe adventurous acts of the Indian army have seriously undermined the stability of the border areas, threatened the lives of Chinese personnel, violated the agreements reached between the two countries on the border issue, and breached the basic norms governing international relations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, India\u2019s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar had held the Chinese forces responsible for the killing of Indian soldiers. He made the comments when he spoke to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Wednesday over phone for the first time since the month-long standoff between troops at several points along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and Sikkim began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Jaishankar had said the incident in Galwan was a \u201cpre-meditated and planned action\u201d by China, which led to the violence. He said the incident was an \u201cunprecedented development\u201d that will also \u201chave a serious impact on the bilateral relationship\u201d with China. Jaishankar had told Wang that Chinese troops had sought to erect a structure in Galwan valley on the Indian side of the LAC, leading to violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs and Modi have said that they are strongly committed to protecting India\u2019s territorial integrity and sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

With inputs from Scroll.in<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The foreign ministry accused India of \u2018unilaterally\u2019 building roads, bridges and other facilities in the Galwan Valley region. China on Friday claimed the entire Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the site of the violent June 15 clashes, including areas that are currently on India\u2019s side of the Line of Actual Control. A statement by Chinese foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}