On Monday, China accused Indian army of violating a bilateral agreement and firing warning shots in the air during a confrontation with Chinese personnel on the border, amid renewed tensions between the two countries.
Chinese border guards took “countermeasures” to stabilise the situation, Zhang Shuili, spokesman for the military’s western command theatre, said in a statement published by the military’s official news website early on Tuesday. The statement did not make clear what those measures were or whether Chinese troops also fired warning shots.
In June, at least twenty Indian troopers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting in a clash, an incident that led to China and India deploying additional forces along the frontier.
“We request the Indian side to immediately stop dangerous actions…and strictly investigate and punish personnel who fired shots to ensure that similar incidents do not occur again,” the spokesman, Mr. Zhang, said in the statement.
Mr. Zhang said India had violated agreements reached by the two countries and warned their actions could “easily cause misunderstandings and misjudgments”. He called for India to withdraw the troops who crossed the border and investigate the officers who opened fire.
Defence ministers from both countries talked in Moscow on the sidelines of an international meeting last week — with both sides later releasing rival statements accusing each other of inflaming the showdown. There was no immediate comment or confirmation of Monday’s incident from the Indian military.
