CHINA has released footage of live-fire military drills on the Tibetan Plateau

China unleashes massive 

display of firepower after 

India vowed revenge over 

deaths of 20 soldiers as WW3 

fears grow

Hal Turner,

19 June, 2020

CHINA has released footage of live-fire military drills on the Tibetan Plateau as tensions with India continue to rage.

The world is holding its breath amid fears a decades-long border row could explode into all-out war after Chinese troops killed 20 Indian soldiers in a clash on Monday.

Chinese state TV broadcast footage of artillery and tanks taking part in a high-altitude drill around 600 miles from the skirmish in the Galwan River Valley.

Video shows the large force blowing apart sections of the landscape - with the Himalayas chillingly providing the backdrop in the distance.

Around 7,000 soldiers also took part, rehearsing storming fortified positions as the People's Liberation Army flexed its military muscles.

It is unclear when the drill was filmed, but it serves as a shot across the bows of India - with Chinese state media yesterday taunting "the gap between [our] strength is clear".

India and China have been feuding over the border since the two powers last fought a war in 1962 - and this week's violence saw the first fatalities since 1975.

Each country claims the Aksai Chin area as their own, and each have accused the other of overstepping the de-facto border known as the Line of Actual Control.

Both sides have blamed the other for the most recent clash in the Galwan Valley, with China warning it won't back down and India threatening a "befitting" reply amid heightening tensions.

Talks are ongoing to try and de-escalate the confrontation between the two-nuclear armed powers as the world watches. 

Eri Kaneko, spokeswoman for the UN Secretary-General, pleaded with both sides to "exercise maximum restraint".

Indians have taken to the streets again today to burn posters of President Xi Jinping, while New Delhi's embassy in Beijing yesterday was guarded by the military police.

Brutal fighting took place on Monday as Indian and Chinese troops fought hand-to-hand and with crude weapons after coming across each other on a mountain ridge.

Some troops were reportedly thrown into a nearby ravine, and others were beaten to death with spiked clubs.

China and India have a longstanding agreement that no guns should be taken near the border, so no shots were fired.

At least 20 Indian troops - including Colonel Bikumalla Santosh Babu - were killed in the fighting.

China suffered 43 casualties - but it's unclear how many were killed and how many were wounded in the battle.

Indian sources claimed their troops were vastly outnumbered 55 to 300 by the Chinese force according to the BBC, and many of them died of their injuries due to the sub-zero temperatures.

Pictures yesterday showed convoys of Indian soldiers being shipped to the border, as the country put its warships and fighter planes on alert.

Tensions have been growing in the region since April when China deployed thousands of troops as well as artillery and vehicles.

Analysts say the troops were deployed in an attempt to stop India increasing its own military presence in the area.

Both countries have a huge military might as well as a large nuclear arsenal.

And both countries too have nationalistic-leaning governments and neither will want to be seen to be the one backing down with, at the very least, national pride at stake.

This will likely be a watershed moment in India-China relations and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, said Abraham Denmark, Asia program director at The Wilson Center.

India and China are led by men who have embraced nationalism, and both countries are facing tremendous domestic and international upheaval as a result of Covid-19 and other long-standing problems.

It is a highly volatile and dangerous situation between two nuclear powers at a time when American influence has badly diminished, Denmark said.