Hate messages target Indian embassy after PLA casualties at Galwan are revealed

As per recent reports, thousands of hate messages were directed at the Indian embassy’s Chinese social media account, an outpouring of grief from Chinese citizens, and more write-ups in official media blaming the Indian Government for the military standoff with India – all these marked an uneasy Saturday, a day after information about the deaths of four People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers was released for the first time

Loads of abusive messages have targeted the Indian embassy’s Twitter-like Weibo account since information about four soldiers being killed and one injured in the deadly Galwan Valley clash last June was published in the PLA Daily newspaper on Friday. Many of the abusive messages on the tightly-censored Weibo account are peppered with explicit statements.

Emotion is running high among Chinese netizens over the soldiers’ deaths, while state media reported that a person was arrested in Nanjing city for publishing insulting remarks about the PLA troopers.

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On Friday, multiple videos purportedly showing the lead-up to the Galwan Valley clash between Indian and Chinese troops in June last year were uploaded on several websites and shared and viewed hundreds of millions of times.

The edited videos show Chinese soldiers outnumbered by Indian troops. The message for the domestic audience was clear – Chinese troops showed restraint and valor while taking on Indian servicemen.

None of the videos claim that 20 Indian soldiers had died in the clash. Photos of the four dead PLA soldiers circulated online and evoked a strong reaction from Chinese citizens. For hundreds of millions of Chinese, it was the first time they learnt about their country’s soldiers dying in a battle.

The Chinese government seemed set to mine the people’s emotions by allowing state media outlets to publish photos of the deceased from when they were young students.

The news website, the paper.cn, ran several photos of two of the deceased soldiers - Chen Hongjun and Xiao Siyuan - from their days at Northwest Normal University and Henan Agricultural Vocational College.

Both universities announced on social media they would mark the deaths of their two former students by allowing teachers and students to pay tributes and carry out “mourning activities”.The nationalistic tabloid, Global Times, published an editorial to give its view on why information about the PLA soldiers has been made public now - eight months after the clash.

“Back to the Galwan Valley clash last year, given the tense situation at that time, avoiding a comparison of casualties was more conducive to the stability of the border situation. Now that the round of border standoff has ended, we must make public the heroes’ deeds so that all Chinese people could admire and commemorate them to understand the weight of peace,” the Global Times editorial said.

“Before the Galwan Valley clash, China had not seen soldiers sacrifice in clashes with foreign troops for quite a long time. The sacrifice of young soldiers including those born after 1995 and 2000 has shocked the nation.”The editorial also said that another reason for eventually releasing the information was to reveal the truth.

“India has been trumpeting its ‘victory’ in the border provocations against China to cater to and encourage surging domestic nationalism. The unveiled number of casualties from China has debunked the lies of India, making it hard for India, who suffered heavy losses in the Galwan Valley, to continue to fool the domestic public,” the editorial added.

Shanghai-based military expert, Ni Lexiong, said China did not release the PLA casualty statistics earlier because it did not want to provoke reactions.

“China is not prepared to expand the border conflict with India, and so it did not immediately report casualties in order to avoid provoking anger among the Chinese,” he said.

“Now that the two sides have reached an agreement on withdrawal and disengagement, the incident has been formally resolved. The Chinese side will be able to handle the casualties normally and it will not affect the settlement of the border conflict. This shows that China is rational and calm,” Ni added.

Should Read- 60 PLA soldiers killed in Galwan Valley, Journalist arrested in China for revealing a state secret

According to Indian claims, around 43 PLA soldiers were killed during the Galwan clash, whereas US intelligence has claimed the number to be 35. Besides this, the Russian Media Agency TASS has claimed that PLA lost 45 soldiers during the clash with the Indian Army on June 15th last year.

In addition to all of this, it was recently reported that Chinese police arrested Qiu Moumou, Who is a senior reporter for China’s top financial newspaper ‘Economic Observer’ which is owned by a billionaire and a senior CCP member, he claimed that PLA lost 60 soldiers in the clash and CCP is hiding true numbers to avoid public outcry.