China ends silence on June deaths at India border

China’s military on Friday named four soldiers killed in a brawl with Indian forces last year, the first confirmation of deaths by Beijing from the border clash that also killed at least 20 Indian soldiers.

The Chinese soldiers “sacrificed themselves” during the June confrontation in the contested Galwan Valley border area with an unnamed “foreign military,” the defense ministry said.

India and China fought a border war in 1962 and have long accused each other of seeking to cross their frontier – which has never been properly agreed upon – in India’s Ladakh region, just opposite Tibet.

In mid-June, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a brutal, high-altitude border battle in the Galwan valley – one of the deadliest clashes between the two sides in recent decades.

Beijing at the time acknowledged that the clash had resulted in casualties but did not confirm if any Chinese soldiers died.