Featured Image Credits: CGTN

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has conducted a series of exercises with its second aircraft carrier, Shandong (Hull 17), in the South China Sea. Shandong is China’s first domestically-made aircraft carrier. The bulk of its first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, was bought from Ukraine.

China had officially commissioned its second aircraft carrier on December 17, 2019, making China one of the few countries to operate multiple carriers.

The exercises are to let the region know that two aircraft carriers are actively involved in training for combat preparedness said Senior Captain Gao Xiucheng, a spokesperson from the PLA Navy.

According to China, such drills are part of its annual work schedule, are fully legitimate and legal, and will contribute to boosting the naval service’s capability to safeguard China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as regional peace and stability.

“We hope the outside world can view [the Shandong’s exercise] objectively and rationally. The PLA Navy will continue to organize similar exercises according to the plan regularly in the future,” Gao said.

This is the first time the Shandong has been part of a major naval exercise in 2021 after it entered service in December 2019 and underwent further trials and training sessions in 2020.

China’s other aircraft carrier Liaoning carrier group also recently conducted routine drills and training near the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea.

For a long time, China has been working on plans to build a strong blue-water navy like the Americans who have many battle groups of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. With two aircraft carriers fully operational, the PLAN can flex its muscle in South East Asia.

China is also actively building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The two carriers it has at its disposal is nothing but a platform to train for combat preparedness in the future and develop capabilities for long-distance and long deployment voyages.

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The tenth round of military talks between India and China, regarding troop disengagement at the border, lasted for around 16 hours from Saturday morning till after midnight on Sunday. Talks at the Corps Commander-level took place at the Moldo border point on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control. The dialogue began at around 10 AM on Saturday and ended at 2 AM on Sunday, according to reports.

The focus of the talks was to take the disengagement process ahead in other friction points like Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang in eastern Ladakh. India has reportedly insisted on a faster disengagement process.

The current talks are in continuation with the earlier bilateral military dialogue held to resolve the situation in Ladakh. This round of talks took place two days after the Indian and Chinese military concluded the disengagement of troops and weapons from north and south banks of Pangong Tso lake after a nearly nine month long military stand-off.

India has maintained all along that disengagement at all the friction points on the India-China border was necessary to de-escalate tensions in the region.

On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced in Parliament that India and China reached an agreement on disengagement in the North and South banks of Pangong lake that mandates both sides to “cease” forward deployment of troops in a “phased, coordinated and verifiable” manner.

Under the agreement, he said, China will pull back its troops to east of Finger 8 areas in the northern bank of Pangong lake while the Indian personnel will be based at their permanent base at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near Finger 3 in the region. Similar action would take place on the south bank of the lake as well, he added.

In the earlier nine rounds of military talks, India had specifically insisted that Chinese troops retreat from Finger 4 to Finger 8 on the North bank of Pangong Lake. The mountain spurs in the area are referred to as ‘Fingers’.

According to reports, troops on both sides have withdrawn to positions in line with the agreement.

China recently revealed the names of its soldiers who died in the violent June 2020 Galwan Valley clash as a face-saving measure and to stoke nationalist feelings among its people.

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An Indian soldier standing guard at a border crossing between India and China in Sikkim

Image Credits: Diptendu Dutta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A day after China officially acknowledged that its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) did suffer casualties at the bloody Galwan valley clash against the Indian Army, a barrage of hate messages targeted the Indian embassy’s Chinese social media account, reports Hindustan Times.

Chinese citizens wrote hateful and abusive messages, blaming New Delhi for the military stand-off and the death of their four PLA soldiers, whose names and stories were revealed by China yesterday, more than eight months after the June 2020 skirmish. Chinese state-run media too had painted the Indian Army as aggressors in the nearly nine-month military stand-off.

Thousands of abusive messages were posted on Chinese micro-blogging platform Weibo, after the communist government admitted that Chinese soldiers did die, albeit after eight long months. There is also strong evidence suggesting that the one-party state is hiding the real casualty figures.

Unlike Twitter, which is banned in China, Weibo is highly censored. The regime often uses the Chinese social media to keep an eye on its own people and quash any dissent. 

Given that high numbers of hate messages were allowed to be posted on the site, it is believed that the Chinese state is running a campaign to hide the fact from the Chinese populace that it has disengaged its troops in Ladakh. 

The acknowledgement of the deaths of the Chinese troops, and the awarding of honours and merit citations to the dead and injured soldiers, is nothing but an attempt to stir nationalistic feelings.

Two of the deceased soldiers, Chen Hongjun and Xiao Siyuan, who went to the Northwest Normal University and Henan Agricultural Vocational College, will be publicly eulogised by students and teachers in mourning activities. Already, photos of the four dead PLA soldiers allowed to circulate online had evoked a strong reaction from Chinese citizens and hundreds of millions of Chinese just learnt about their soldiers dying in a battle.

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

This excerpt from a Global Times editorial puts it best on how the Chinese regime is stoking nationalistic fervour:

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.

Reading between the lines, it is clear that emotions are running high among Chinese netizens over the soldiers’ deaths, and it is these emotions that the Chinese government seeks to exploit and turn into nationalistic zealotry. 

Furthermore, in viral propaganda videos purportedly released by the Chinese military, Chinese soldiers are shown to be outnumbered by Indian troops. The videos are meant to give the Chinese people the impression that it was the Chinese troops that showed restraint and valour while taking on aggressive Indian servicemen.

However, in another video which first surfaced on Twitter in May 2020, a Chinese colonel can be seen posturing aggressively and yelling at Indian troops, clearly indicative of the fact that it was the Chinese troops who provoked the stand-off. 

Proud of this Indian officer. Watch how calmly he handles the numerically superior Chinese while the PLA Colonel nearly burst a vein trying to intimidate. Great metaphor for the calm restraint and strength shown in south Pangong. pic.twitter.com/YigzU9FYZT

— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) February 19, 2021

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Representational Image | Credits: Getty Images

Eight months after the Himayalan border clash at Galwan valley clash in which Indian soldiers were ambushed by the PLA, China officially acknowledged on Friday (19 February), that four of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were killed and one was injured in the clashes.

While this revelation comes at the heels of a full Chinese withdrawal from the shores of the Pangong lake in Ladakh and both nations agreeing to status quo ante, what is more revelatory is the language used by the military and the Chinese state-run media when referring to the violent clash which resulted in a nearly nine-month long stand-off between India an China atop the icy Himalayan mountains.

As can be expected, Chinese state-run media lays the responsibility for the clash squarely on India. Remarkably, however, the report doesn’t name India, but refers to the Indian Army as “foreign forces” who were “tresspassing”.

According to a report by the China Global Television Network (CGTN), the communist regime has honoured two officers and three soldiers for “defending the country’s western border”.

“China’s military authorities have honored two officers and three soldiers, including four who received the awards posthumously, for defending the country’s western border. The People’s Liberation Army Daily on Friday reported that the Central Military Commission issued commendations to the servicemen for their role in bravely fighting back hostilities provoked by foreign forces at the Galwan Valley”, the report said.

The five PLA troops were honoured with honorary titles and first-class merit citations. Four of them were honoured posthumously.

“The title of “border-defending hero” was conferred on Battalion Commander Chen Hongjun posthumously, while Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran received the first-class merit. They all died in a clash with trespassing foreign military personnel wielding steel tubes, cudgels, and stones last June.”

The Central Military Commission (CMC), which is the national defense organization of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China and is headed by Xi Jinping, uncharacteristically also unveiled the names and stories of the martyrs for the first time to commemorate their sacrifice for defending “national sovereignty and territory”.

However, based on reports by Russian news agency TASS, Lieutenant General Y C Joshi, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Army’s Northern Command had claimed that 45 Chinese PLA soldiers were killed on 15 June 2020.

It is noteworthy that it has taken over eight months for China to acknowledge the deaths of its own soldiers, while India had earlier said, in June itself, that twenty of its soldiers had died in the clash.

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China has for the first time revealed that four of its troops died during the violent border clash with Indian troops in the Himalayas in June 2020, as both sides completed the disengagement at the Pangong lake.

The men died after fighting “foreign troops” who “crossed into the Chinese border”, said Chinese state-controlled media.

The bloody skirmish, which took place in the Galwan Valley in India’s Ladakh region, involved Indian and Chinese soldiers reportedly fighting one another with stones and nail-studded clubs.

It was admittedly the deadliest clash along the India-China border area in 45 years, after the major border clash in 1967.

Four Chinese soldiers, who were sacrificed in last June's border conflict, were posthumously awarded honorary titles and first-class merit citations, Central Military Commission announced Friday. A colonel, who led them and seriously injured, was conferred with honorary title. pic.twitter.com/Io9Wk3pXaU

— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) February 19, 2021

Previously, India had said that 20 of its soldiers were killed in last year’s clash, while Beijing acknowledged casualties but did not disclose any further details. Indian intercepts had put the number of Chinese casualties at 43 that includes dead and injured.

On Friday, China’s military news outlet PLA Daily named the “heroic” Chinese soldiers who gave their “youth, blood and even life” – Chen Hongjun, Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran. They were all given posthumous awards.

Wang had died after drowning in icy waters while crossing a river to reach his army mates, said the report. Meanwhile, another man, regimental commander Qi Fabao, was also given honours after sustaining “serious injuries”.

There was another violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers at Nathu La in January this year. 20 Chinese soldiers were reportedly injured in the clash, while 4 on the Indian side sustained injuries.

Chinese state-run media had announced on February 10 that both sides had begun disengagement at the Pangong Lake. The disengagement in that area is now complete after troops moved out from both the banks of Pangong Lake in the eastern Ladakh sector along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

India and China will hold the 10th round of corps commander level talks on Saturday to discuss disengagement from other friction points. The talks will be held on the Chinese side of the LAC in Moldo.

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As the global community is fast rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by China, there has been a further significant embarrassment to the Communist Party of China. A fake Covid-19 vaccine racket has been busted where bottled saline water was being sold as COVID-19 vaccine, ABC News has reported.

As per the report, 3,000 doses of this fake COVID-19 vaccine have been confiscated and 80 individuals have been arrested in police raids in the cities of Beijing, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. It is believed that this racket has been going on since September of last year.

The accused have been “making huge profits by filling saline solution into injectors to process and make fake coronavirus vaccines and selling them at a higher price”, reports said.

China has been vaccinating its populace using vaccines developed by Sinovac and Sinopharm. However, due to its low efficacy rate of just over 50 per cent, trials of this vaccine were halted in Brazil due to an adverse effect. Also, another South American country Peru had already suspended the ongoing clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine made by Chinese drug giant Sinopharm after detecting neurological problems in one of its test volunteers.

It must also be noted that China also supplied faulty test kits for many countries along with sub-standard Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits and in that process made billions of dollars off of the misery of many nations.

At the same time, India has been lauded for its efforts to provide vaccines to almost all its neighbouring nations, showing magnanimity and generosity. India’s “Vaccine Maitri” programme is gaining momentum and as the world’s largest vaccine-maker, many nations have approached India to help procure supplies to immunise their respective populations from the Wuhan virus. 

India has already supplied to the COVID-19 vaccine to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Brazil and now will be extending help to South Africa with the indigenously developed vaccine made by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the Pune based National Institute of Virology.

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In the wake of the Presidential inauguration of Joe Biden, China has imposed sanctions on 28 US individuals, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials of the Trump administration.

Chinese state-sponsored media reported on January 20 that over the past few years, some “anti-China politicians” in the United States had “planned, promoted and executed a series of crazy moves which have gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s interests, offended the Chinese people, and seriously disrupted China-U.S. relations”.

The Chinese government, in order “to defend China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests”, has decided to enforce sanctions on “28 persons who have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and who have been mainly responsible for such U.S. moves on China-related issues”.

These individuals include former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert C. O’Brien, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar II, former investment  banker and political strategist Stephen Bannon and several others.

Mike Pompeo had, in his last week in office, started a new foreign policy line regarding US-Taiwan relations, had further burdened China with increased sanctions and officially termed the Chinese treatment of its minority Uyghur population a “genocide”.

“These individuals and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao of China. They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China”, Chinese state-run media said.

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Traces of the coronavirus was found in cartons of ice cream produced by the Daqiaodao Food Co., Ltd. in Tianjin,  place close to the Chinese capital Beijing. The factory was sealed and the employees were tested for the virus. It was found that no one had contracted the virus from the ice cream.

Over 29,000 cartons were produced by this factory, but most of them were left unsold. The 390 cartons that were sold in Tianjin were being tracked down and authorities elsewhere were notified of sales to their areas. The ingredients included New Zealand milk powder and whey powder from Ukraine, the government said.

The authorities said the coronavirus survived in ice cream because of the cold temperature. They believe the virus reached the ice cream through an infected person.

Meanwhile, China on Sunday reported 109 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, two-thirds of them in a northern province close to Beijing, though no deaths have been reported.

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While the entire world is painting an Islamophobic picture on French President Emmanuel Macron and burning his effigies all over, China is silently ‘sinicizing’ mosques as well as all signs of Islamic symbols. They are transforming them to adhere to the country’s policies and are doing this in a well-concealed manner.

Recently, the Nanguan Mosque in the Ningxia province, which is the largest mosque of that region, has been the casualty of this move. The domes of the mosque had been completely removed and have been replaced by Mandarin inscriptions. All symbols related to Islam have been removed from the location. This mosque had been built in the Ming Dynasty reign and had been restored in 1981.

The bright golden and green coloured mosque with onion-shaped domes and Islamic style curved windows have transformed into a grey coloured rectangular structure. It has now like a modern shopping complex with no Islamic texts and symbols. The ‘Nanguan Mosque’ is written in Chinese, and all Arabic text has been removed. Notably, the Ningxia province is the region housing the largest community of Hui Muslims in China.

The sinicization was expedited after Chinese President Xi Jinping made a visit in June to the region.

The Chinese government, in short, has conveniently used the pandemic to their advantage and are removing all symbols of Islam and replacing them with those that are more ‘complaisant’ with their policies.

TripAdvisor suggested the Nanguan Mosque in #Yinchuan well worth a visit. Only this is what it looks like now, after ‘renovations’. Domes, minarets, all gone. No visitors allowed either, of course. So depressing. pic.twitter.com/WSXaAFclHX

— Christina Scott (@CScottFCDO) October 18, 2020

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