E-Paper
China’s PLA to unveil memorial wall for soldiers near LAC
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will soon unveil a memorial wall at the high-altitude Kangxiwar Martyrs’ Cemetery (KMC) near the Sino-India Line of Actual Control (LAC) with details of 113 soldiers killed fighting Indian troops or who ‘died in service’ at the border.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will soon unveil a memorial wall at the high-altitude Kangxiwar Martyrs’ Cemetery (KMC) near the Sino-India Line of Actual Control (LAC) with details of 113 soldiers killed fighting Indian troops or who “died in service” at the border.
The newly renovated cemetery, which is located at over 14,000 feet in the Karakoram mountains in Xinjiang has the tombstones of the four who died in the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020.
Majority of the graves at KMC are of Chinese troops killed during the 1962 war with India. The cemetery was designated a “patriotic education base” last year.
It also has unmarked graves for four unidentified soldiers.
The four unidentified Chinese soldiers were part of the list of 113 dead soldiers released by a PLA veterans’ group in January. The list was released on Chinese social media to solicit public comments ahead of installing “...famous wall to display the famous names and basic information of the 113 martyrs buried in the cemetery, those who died in service or illness etc”, a post from the veterans’ group said.
“The content preliminarily approved by the relevant departments of the Army is now published as follows, and is open for public solicitation and verification,” the post said.
The four “unknown soldiers” are numbered 110, 111, 112 and 113.
Their numbers are listed after the names of the four PLA men killed in the Galwan Valley clash: Chen Hongjun (106), Xiao Siyuan (107), Chen Xiangrong (108) and Wang Zhuoran (109).
The four were from the 69316 unit of the southern Xinjiang military district of the Western Theatre Command (WTC) and were officially identified by China in February, 2021, several months after the clash in which 20 Indian troops were killed.
When contacted, the Chinese foreign ministry told HT that it did not have any information to share about the cemetery or the unknown soldiers and asked to contact “competent authorities”.
When HT contacted the PLA veterans’ group over WeChat, an unidentified man first suggested that news on the cemetery should not be written. He then sent a message saying a foreigner in China should strictly abide by law.
Soon after, the list of the 113 dead PLA soldiers and the accompanying post in Chinese was deleted from WeChat.
(HT has screenshots of the post, and a translated list of the soldiers’ names.)
Considered the highest cemetery in China, KMC is located at some 14,000 feet in the Karakoram mountains near the disputed Sino-India border in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
It was built in 1965 to commemorate PLA soldiers killed in the 1962 India-China war.
At least 71 PLA soldiers killed in the 1962 war are buried at the cemetery, according to the list published in January.
While the majority on the list “died in service” during the “self-defence counterattack”, according to the official Chinese narrative of the 1962 war, other PLA soldiers died in accidents and illness at the LAC.
In certain cases, the list doesn’t explain how the soldiers “died in service”.
For example, of the recent-most deaths before the PLA’s Galwan Valley casualties, three PLA personnel had “died in service”: One in 2019, and two in 2016. It remains unclear how they died.
In February this year, Australian media outlet The Klaxon had claimed that at least 38 PLA soldiers were killed during the Galwan clash. Many soldiers had drowned while crossing a fast-flowing river, the report said.
HT had reported last November that the KMC was being renovated to serve as a base for education on patriotism.
The desolate cemetery was designated a Communist Party of China (CPC) “education base” in September, 2021.
The cemetery is likely the first such “patriotic education base” in connection with Sino-Indian military history.
The designation of the KMC as a patriotic education base and its renovation was hastened after a Chinese travel blogger entered the graveyard last July and clicked smiling selfies, triggering an online furore in the country.
On November 15, the blogger was jailed for seven months for dishonouring dead soldiers.
