China's losses during the 2020 Galwan Valley clash against India are "nine times more" than what has been officially quoted by the Chinese government. The Klaxon, an Australian investigative newspaper claimed that "China's casualties extended well beyond the four soldiers named by Beijing".
In February 2021, eight months after the attack, the Chinese government gave medals to four soldiers posthumously who had died in the Galwan valley clash. However, the findings in the Klaxon report suggest that the casualties "were much higher than reported with many soldiers drowning while crossing a fast-flowing, sub-zero river in darkness, new research claims."
The report also says that Beijing went to extreme lengths to silence discussion about the Galwan Valley clash.
The tensions on the Ladakh border rose as Indian and Chinese troops clashed in the Galwan valley on June 20, 2022. 20 Indian soldiers also lost their lives in the course of the confrontation.
Klaxon cited a report titled 'Galwan Decoded' that it said was prepared by social media researchers. "A lot of facts about what really happened, what led to the skirmish, have been hidden by Beijing," it quoted from the report.
"According to a Weibo user alias name Qiang who claims to have served in the area, the PLA was creating infrastructure in this buffer zone, violating the mutual agreement and had been trying to expand its patrolling limits within the buffer zone since April 2020," the researchers state.
A lot of People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers died by drowning while crossing a bridge that was built by the Indian army
“Wang Zhuran pushed four comrades ashore one after another but his legs became stuck by stones at the bottom of the river.
“His physical strength was too weak and he drowned,” the document states.