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On the night of 15 June 2020, soldiers from India and China engaged in what can only be described as medieval warfare on treacherous mountain terrain at an altitude of 4,200m, in the disputed grey zone along the Indo-Chinese frontier. For over seven hours, in pitch darkness, they battered each other with nail-studded wooden staves and iron rods wrapped in barbed wire, hurled rocks and fought with their bare hands. Day dawned on the stark, inhospitable Himalayan landscape, revealing 78 Indian soldiers wounded and 20 dead, most from exposure or drowning after being thrown into the freezing waters of the Galwan river below. Some of the bodies had floated downstream and were recovered further south at the point where the Galwan meets the Shyok. China remains tight-lipped about casualty numbers but Indian sources suggest the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lost more than 40 men. In keeping with a 1993 protocol signed by the two countries, no firearms were used.
This episode followed several weeks of clashes along India and China’s 3,488km-long border, which has never been clearly demarcated. Since the 1962 war between the two countries, this has been known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and it includes a grey zone that falls within territory claimed by both sides. Since each side has its own view of where the line runs, their claimed borders criss-cross and overlap in many places, and clashes between patrols, incursions (even unintended) and other transgressions are common. However, the fatalities on 15 June were the first in 45 years.
For several decades, despite these regular scuffles, India and China have achieved the remarkable feat of maintaining a largely peaceful border, resolving disputes through talks at military or diplomatic level. In 1988 they agreed to set the border question aside in order to concentrate on other aspects of their relationship.