Chinese paramilitary police officers patrolled outside the Indian Embassy in Beijing on June 16 as the two countries were embroiled in a border dispute.
Photo: greg baker/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWeekslong tensions between China and India turned deadly this week. Here is what we know about the clashes in a remote Himalayan area that could significantly worsen relations between the neighbors.
Q: What happened at India’s and China’s disputed border?
A: What precisely happened remains unclear. The Indian government said that 20 of its troops died in a clash in an area known as the Galwan Valley and that casualties resulted on both sides. The valley is in an area where the border is in dispute.
The Chinese government didn’t comment on casualties for either side, confirming only that a clash took place after Indian soldiers crossed into an area it considers under Chinese control.
Q: Why are India and China fighting?
A: The two countries fought a war in 1962 and have failed to agree on the delineation of their border in several areas of the Himalayan mountains ever since. The two sides patrol the areas near the disputed boundary, known as the Line of Actual Control, and have been confronting each other with greater frequency in recent years.
Q: When is the last time someone was killed?
A: While skirmishes, fistfights and rock throwing have resulted from patrols from the two sides meeting in disputed areas, lethal clashes have been rare. Four Indian soldiers were killed in 1975 in one of the worst of these.
Indian troops underwent an inspection in the Ladakh border region during the war between India and China, 1962-63.
Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty ImagesQ: What prompted the recent escalation?
A: India has built infrastructure, such as roads and arms installations, in recent years on its side of the disputed areas, attempting to catch up with earlier Chinese efforts to do the same. The two sides went through a tense standoff in 2017 in an area disputed between Bhutan, an Indian ally, and China near a strategic point on the Indian-Chinese border.
What exactly has triggered the recent tensions remains somewhat unclear. Chinese troops have moved more frequently into areas of dispute in some parts of the border, with Indian troops seeking to counter their moves resulting in at least one physical brawl. The two militaries have held weeks of talks, and diplomatic efforts have also continued, to try to de-escalate the situation.
Q: What is the danger this turns into a broader conflict?
A: Monday’s clashes could ratchet-up diplomatic and military tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. India hasn’t indicated how it will respond, though the deaths of Indian security personnel will put pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take a tougher stance against China’s growing assertiveness. It is unclear whether violence will escalate at other sensitive points along the disputed boundary.
Write to Bill Spindle at bill.spindle@wsj.com and Niharika Mandhana at niharika.mandhana@wsj.com
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