Many Chinese netizens called for peace and restraint following a physical clash between military forces that broke out on the China-India border on Monday.
Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a serious physical clash in Galwan Valley on Monday. According to reports from Indian media, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed. The Chinese military confirmed that the clash between the two sides led to casualties, but did not release exact figures.
Following the clash, the hashtag of China-India border clash has earned 740 million views on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo as of Wednesday afternoon. Most Chinese netizens criticized the Indian troops for crossing the border on Weibo.
However, some Chinese netizens took to social media Twitter to state that the incident should not undermine the common development of the two countries.
“I really hope friends and comrades don’t provoke Indian people on Twitter or engage with any bad-faith provocations. It tarnishes what soft power we have left, and any inflammation of Indian public opinion is contrary to our interests. Silence is golden,” Chinese netizen Hubei_Peasant commented on Twitter on Wednesday.
Another Chinese netizen echoed the opinion by posting that “I was in India in 2016. I think India and China are two similar developing countries with good potential. I hope both countries can restrain their emotions and seek common development.”
Some Chinese netizens also appealed for fellow citizens to not post any false provocations, which might give Western media outlets the opportunity to stir up trouble.
One netizen on Twitter posted snapshots of two accounts on the platform that often post content smearing China, saying that the accounts falsely claim to belong to Indians.
He pointed out that the so-called “Indian” accounts often post “anti-China contents” in English without any Hindi, and that one has blocked him.
“Keep your eyes open, be restrained and refute (fake news) reasonably. Beware of someone irritating you on purpose,” he suggested.
“Chinese officials and media have been very restrained when reporting the news, but some rumors have been spread widely by Indian media, which are more likely to be induced by some Western media looking to smear China,” another Chinese netizen wrote on Twitter.
“Dibaguanwei,” a blogger on Sina Weibo with 1.05 million followers, told the Global Times on Wednesday that China has always been very rational and restrained when it comes to India as the Chinese military only require India to strictly restrain its front-line troops, immediately stop all infringement and provocative actions and return to the correct track of dialogue and talks to resolve differences.
“Compared with the restraint of China, it seems that Indian is a little irrational. Maybe they want to take this opportunity to distract attention away from Indian people’s public opinion on the coronavirus situation in India,” he said, adding that he believes this incident will not trigger war between the two nations.
Photo: VCG
