China's border row template: Russia in 1969, Galwan in 2020
1,300 Chinese soldiers were killed at Rezang La
Chinese provocations boomerang all the time. The clash at Galwan is eerily similar to something that happened in 1969. The Chinese army clashed with the erstwhile Soviet Union at that time. The PLA was ambushed but it did not learn any lesson.
Fifty-one years later, China applied the same border template in Galwan and failed again.
On March 2, 1969, in frozen Ussuri river which was the boundary between China and the erstwhile Soviet Union, the Russian border guards spotted some Chinese troops marching across the river.
They were headed towards a riverine island which the Chinese called Zhenbao and the Russians referred to as Damansky.
A group of Soviet KGB border troops went to meet the advancing Chinese army. They were led by senior Lieutenant Strelnikov. The Chinese opened fire and Lieutenant Strelnikov died on the spot. In total, 31 Soviet soldiers were killed with many stabbed, bayonetted in their necks and chest.
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The KBG counter-ambushed the Chinese with automatic fire, state-of-art T-62 tanks and BM-21 grad rocket artillery. Several hundred Chinese troops were killed even as Beijing hid the numbers just like it did at Galwan. The similarities between the two clashes are far too many.
First, both the clashes involved the rogue Chinese army, second, there were river bodies namely the Galwan river and the Ussuri river. Third, the Chinese provoked first in both cases. Fourth, Beijing engaged nuclear-armed neighbours - India and the former Soviet Union. Fifth, senior military officials were killed.
India lost colonel Suresh babu, the former USSR lost senior lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov. The nature of the attack involved stabbing, bayonetting by the Chinese. The Chinese provocations were a result of perceived threat. In 1969, Beijing was threatened by the Soviet Union. In 2020, the Dragon was unnerved by India's strategic construction along the LAC.
Experts believe that in both cases the orders had come from Beijing. China even at that time hid its casualty and in both cases China's plan boomeranged.
It's template failed, and China did not achieve anything by provoking a neighbour.