3 Indian Soldiers Killed in First Deadly Clash on Chinese Border in Decades

Preliminary reports on Tuesday indicated that the soldiers had not been shot, but had been killed in a rock-throwing melee that was similar to fights that broke out last month along the border and seriously injured several soldiers on both sides.

It was the first time in decades that soldiers had been killed in a skirmish along the border, military experts said.

Indian military officials were tight-lipped about what happened and said they were trying to de-escalate the situation. After Indian and Chinese troops faced off at several points high in the Himalayas in the past few weeks, Indian officials said this month that the two sides were working to resolve disputes through diplomatic and military channels.

“During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday night with casualties,” according to a statement that appeared in the Indian news media and that was attributed to Indian military officials. “The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers. Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.”

In Beijing, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, said that Indian forces had twice crossed the border illegally on Monday and attacked Chinese personnel. He said the Chinese side had “lodged strong protests” but continued to work toward resolving the tensions between the two countries.

Last month, Chinese troops confronted Indian soldiers at several remote border points in the Himalayas, some more than 1,000 miles apart. Since then, both armies have rushed in thousands of reinforcements along what is known as the Line of Actual Control, the precise location of which can be blurry.

Indian analysts say that China has beefed up its forces with dump trucks, excavators, troop carriers, artillery and armored vehicles, and that China is now occupying Indian territory.

The packs of soldiers from the two countries who march up and down the mountains are under strict orders not to shoot at each other, security analysts said, but that doesn’t stop them from throwing rocks or battling with crude weapons or even their fists. Indian military officials said on Tuesday that the soldiers had been killed by Chinese troops throwing rocks.

Foreign-policy analysts say a more assertive China is stepping up its efforts to defend its territorial claims, including in the Himalayas. In recent weeks, the Chinese have sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South China Sea, swarmed a Malaysian offshore oil rig, menaced Taiwan and severely tightened their grip on the semiautonomous region of Hong Kong.

The confrontations with India fit “a broader pattern of Chinese assertiveness,” said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, noting that it was the fourth flare-up since China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, rose to power at the end of 2012.