Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech to chief ministers on June 18 is now unavailable to view from China. Comments by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have also been deleted from two Chinese social media accounts, Wechat and Weibo. It comes after an Indian minister taunted China over the number of fatalities.
“If 20 were martyred on our side, then there would have been at least double the casualties on their side,” V.K.Singh, the minister for roads and transport, told TV News24 in an interview broadcast late on Saturday.
China’s freedom of speech is severely limited with an outright ban on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Although in an act of what could be interpreted as rank hypocrisy, the Chinese foreign minister and even President Xi Jinping’s spokesperson have their own Twitter accounts.
After the deletion, Chinese people have very little access to any other version of events in the Galwan valley other than the official line.
India has reported that 40 Chinese soldiers lost their lives in the skirmish in the high altitude terrain.
But, within China there has been no report of casualties from the home side, just a report that India suffered 20 fatalities.
In an unprecedented act the communist regime has now removed the statement by India’s prime minister Modi on the social media app.
The statement gave India’s account of what happened referring to fatalities on both sides.
READ MORE: Modi to face opposition after the death of 20 Indian soldiers
Now the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese government, has said that releasing the number of casualties could actually lead to comparisons and therefore would only raise tensions further between the two nations.
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Li Jian Zhang in a step-by-step account squarely blamed India for the provocation on his personal Twitter account.
But the comments section was deleted by the foreign minister after many people across the world objected to the false picture than he gave of events.
One twitter comment read: “China did not even show the count of dead soldiers!
“I wonder if u at least gave the bodies to their family.”
China is actively trying to portray a muscular response to the events to its citizens.