In the midst of the ongoing border tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, a video has gone viral on social networking sites of young People Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers troops.
On September 20, Pakistani comedian Zaid Hamid published a video wherein several young soldiers were getting emotional and sobbing inside a bus while singing to a well-known Chinese military song "Green Flowers in the Army". "They were struggling to sing the words to the PLA song as they were heading towards the India-China border at Ladakh to face the Indian Army," the Taiwan News had reported. This interprets as a sign of fear against deployment at the border with India amid the ongoing tension in eastern Ladakh.
The video was published online last week on the WeChat page of Fuyang City Weekly before it was removed. The original footage, however, shows 10 new troops from Fuyang City's Yingzhou district in Anhui province of China. They were reportedly college students and five of them had "proactively volunteered to serve in Tibet," which borders the Ladakh region, where the standoff between Indian and Chinese armies took place at Galwan valley in June. in which 20 Indian troops were martyred.
The video was reportedly shot at Fuyang Railway Station while the troops were preparing to head to a military camp in Hebei province, according to Taiwan News. However, a Chinese user who goes by the handle @waynescene reposted the video on Twitter on September 20 and wrote, "They were told that they would be going to the front lines after they got on the bus. The cannon fodder are crying!"
On the other hand, the Taiwan news also stated that Hamid had said in the post, "transferred to Ladakh Border to face Indian Army [sic]", adding that China's one-child policy is "seriously hurting the motivation level of our Chinese brothers." He then added, "We Pakistani support you China. Stay Brave." Although Pakistan is an ally of China, Hamid appeared to be poking fun at the tender, green recruits, the report said.
After getting busted by the Taiwan News, the Chinese state-controlled media reacted strongly against its Taiwanese counterparts, saying they deliberately misinterpreted the emotional video involving the PLA soldiers. The nationalist tabloid Global Times on Tuesday falsely claimed, "At that time, they were bidding farewell to their parents and sang the famous military song ‘Green Flowers in the Army’, and they sang ‘Go home when you celebrate your work’, completely contrary to the mood created by Taiwanese media."
The report also accused that the Taiwanese media report “tried to use all kinds of explicit hints to shape the image of the PLA fighters being ‘afraid of war." The Global Times report also managed to drag India's name behind outcry. It added that many who re-posted the content mocking the PLA were Twitter users from India.
Amid these war of words, one thing is for sure that the Chinese soldiers also know what happens when you know you have to deal with the Indian Army. They will not spare anyone when it comes to safeguarding India and its countrymen. They have already proved it when the Indian troops had to fight back the Chinese troops on June 15 night without firing a single bullet. Though the casualties were not revealed by China, it was reported that more than 40 Chinese soldiers were killed in the brutal face-off.