China is using the COVID-19 pandemic to lash out in every direction, a top US Senator said on Thursday.
As per reports, the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services Jim Inhofe alleged that China’s premeditated military incursion along the Indian border have led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers.
He also claimed that China is using the COVID-19 pandemic to harass other nations like Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia too.
“They’ve antagonized and harassed Taiwanese, Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Indonesian vessels in the South China Sea and used every tool in their shed to coerce Australia into silence about COVID-19,” said Inhofe.
“And now 20 Indian soldiers are dead some killed by what are essentially baseball bats with spikes,” he added.
On June 15, the twenty Indian Army personnel were killed at Galwan in eastern Ladakh during a violent military faceoff with the Chinese Army along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The fierce clashes between two sides continued for several hours.
Indian intercepts had revealed that Chinese side suffered 43 casualties in face-off in the Galwan valley.
The Indian Army initially said on Tuesday that an officer and two soldiers were killed.
However, it later revised the figure to 20 saying 17 others who were critically injured in the line of duty and exposed to sub-zero temperatures at the standoff location succumbed to their injuries.