Military ‘Dangal’ between New Delhi and Beijing has Chinese netizens abuzz
Thousands have commented over the incident on Weibo — the Chinese version of Twitter — and shared messages as the news of the stand-off spread online.
Chinese netizens have reacted with anger and sarcasm to the Sino-India military stand-off in the Sikkim sector of the border, with thousands commenting on the incident on Weibo — the Chinese version of Twitter — as the news spread.
On Wednesday, China accused Indian troops of trespassing into its territory in Donglang, an area of dispute between Beijing and Thimphu.
Some users of Weibo had “conspiracy theories” and questioned the timing of the news, which broke when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was having dinner with US President Donald Trump.
The comments have been translated from Chinese to English.
“I just want to ask a question, I just simply ask. India’s armed forces blatantly crossed the border into our territory, why don’t we take a little tough measures? This is a violation of our territorial sovereignty,” was a remark widely shared.
“Please Xi dada (President Xi Jinping is called “big daddy” here) greatly help the people of Sikkim to restore their country. You (people in Sikkim) won’t feel safe around the Indians,” said another.
“In this case, we should not allow India’s annexation of Sikkim. When I was in elementary school, Sikkim was still a country,” said another Weibo user with a fair amount of historical knowledge.
One user referenced India’s acquisition of weapons and said the weapons were meant to be used against China.
“These years India buys a lot of advanced weapons, and always wants to (take) revenge on China; that is why the problem happened,” the user said.
One user talked about renouncing the love for Indian movies, curry and specifically “roti and paratha”.
Another Weibo user kept it circumspect.
“India is a big country with best strategic environment because it is next to China, but America and Japan want to use it to contain China, while Russia, Britain and France want to make profit through weapons. But if China is really cool, which will result in India’s strategic environment becoming extremely bad. Of course, it isn’t good for China if China and India fight with each other.”