A Reuters report of June 24, said Chinese analysts have said, following the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting in the Galwan Valley, that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces strident calls for a strong response, but Chinese President Xi Jinping is under no such public pressure. Zhang Jiadong, Director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, was quoted saying “Indians watch everything that China is doing, but most Chinese only have eyes for international issues related to the U.S. or Taiwan.” He added that both governments would prefer to play down the clash, but information from the remote battlefield leaking into Indian media forces Modi’s hand in a way that would not be possible in China and said “The clash happened because troops from both sides have a different understanding of where the line of actual control lies. This area is a barren hilltop with no economic or geostrategic value. From the Chinese government point of view, it is not worth destabilising bilateral relations over this. Reuters added that the border clash did not crack the top 50 searches on China’s Twitter-like Weibo on June 23.
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