Chinese social media sites delete PM's speech, MEA spokesman's remarks on border crisis

Beijing, June 20: Indian embassy officials here have said the speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to chief ministers on June 18 as well as the comments by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been deleted from two Chinese social media accounts, including Weibo.

The move comes in the backdrop of the violent face-off between the Indian and Chinese armies in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday in which 20 Indian military personnel were killed, significantly escalating the already volatile situation in the region.

Indian Embassy officials said the transcript of the remarks of the MEA spokesman Anurag Srivastava were found to have been removed from the Embassy's account of Sina Weibo on June 18.

After that the Indian officials re-published the screen shots of Srivastava's comments on June 19.

Sina Weibo which is similar to Twitter in China has millions of users and all embassies in Beijing besides several world leaders including Prime Minister Modi have opened their accounts to interact with the Chinese people.

The MEA spokesperson's remarks have also been removed from the official WeChat account.

A note on WeChat says, “unable to view this content because it violates regulations.”

In his comments, Srivastava had asked China to confine its activities to its side of the Line of Actual Control and that it must not take any unilateral action to alter it. Prime Minister Modi’s remarks of June 18 about the Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash has also become inaccessible on WeChat.

The page says that the “content has been deleted by the author,” whereas the Embassy officials said they have not removed it.

Emphasising that the sacrifice of Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash in Ladakh will not go in vain, Modi said that India wants peace but is capable of giving a befitting reply, if instigated.

Both the Weibo pages of the Indian embassy and its WeChat group have thousands of followers. While the Weibo page was opened earlier, the WeChat group started in January this year. Modi opened an account in Weibo during his visit here in 2015 and continued to make use of it to interact with the Chinese people.

No posts related to the recent military confrontation were posted on his page.

Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel, were killed in the clashes with the Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night.

While China has acknowledged casualties on their side, it has not specified the numbers. Beijing has not made any official statement on the casualties suffered by the People's Liberation Army during the face-off with the Indian Army.