Ladakh Flash Point

ougoah said:

Just wondering alone innocently into the Indian side is the official BS story. Expect the guy to get tortured if not a defector. They'll want to know what he was doing PLA should be learning lessons! Second time it's happened?

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If the Indians in their geniuses do end up torturing a PLA soldier, you can expect Global Times and HuXujing to be beating the drums and making propaganda hay about it. In fact, you can even expect sanctions and censure against the already debilitating indian economy.

siegecrossbow said:

Real question is what was he doing out there alone at night?

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I honestly think it's one of those "special forces" (who knows if they used them) ops. They can fly drones well within Chinese side to view Indian positions for a decent distance that traveling soldiers surely could not get as deep. Which begs the question why the PLA will send soldier/s in like this. They could honestly be planting things. It won't be mines so could be sensors of sorts? Drones can do everything else to be honest unless they just want to save money on operating HALE/MALE which would suggest these "scouting" activities frequent enough that using serious drones would blow too much money and sending cheap small commercial drones would be too easily detected for the depth they require.

This isn't good because the Indians will be able to get answers from him and it'll reveal PLA operations, planning, and possibly whatever he's planting. Plus the guy will almost definitely get the crap beat out of him. CCP won't do shit because there's almost no doubt he was found and taken on Indian side. This just couldn't really happen on Chinese side without huge confrontations and media noise. I find it hard to believe PLA will allow soldiers to wonder off anywhere. So it's almost certainly sanctioned with whatever purpose the Indians know already or will find out.

hashtagpls said:

If the Indians in their geniuses do end up torturing a PLA soldier, you can expect Global Times and HuXujing to be beating the drums and making propaganda hay about it. In fact, you can even expect sanctions and censure against the already debilitating indian economy.

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They could deny it pretty easily and the CCP will have very little reason to bleat on about it because they are the aggressor in this situation (assuming the PLA guy was sent into Indian side) and because they got caught so it's an embarrassment/incompetence. They'll use whatever way they want to get information from him no doubt. They are not going to believe he wondered in innocently even if that somehow really was the truth but come on. Not even I am going to believe that.

Having said that, Indian soldiers who were captured by PLA were not tortured at least neither side even suggested that while China's side said they were treated very well, given food water etc and returned. Indians never denied or reported otherwise and only said they received returned Jawans. So maybe torturing will set a bad precedent.

The difference here is the Indians are going to rightfully suspect him and will want to extract information based on their suspicions. So it's slightly different a situation than the other standards. This might reveal PLA operations and tactics though!

Kaeshmiri said:

This is the 2nd time a Chinese soldier has been held by India in the past few months

This has to be Psy-ops on part of PLA . I mean how else can 1 PLA solider get lost and enter Indian territory despite all the best tech available to him. Where were the rest of his unit?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1347857043617583105

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This is actually embarrassing ... and indeed the second time this has happened in just a span of 3 months. Does the PLA not patrol in small units at the minimum? If it is a single soldier incident again, then the higher ups better crack down on such dangerous activity. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Honestly, a court martial should be in order for the soldier if it was his fault.

ougoah said:

The difference here is the Indians are going to rightfully suspect him and will want to extract information based on their suspicions. So it's slightly different a situation than the other standards. This might reveal PLA operations and tactics though!

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The indians want war so they'll find out soon enough about PLA ops and tactics; might even be a good idea for Chinese SpecOps to blood themselves by topping a few Jawans in the dead of night.

Figaro said:

This is actually embarrassing ... and indeed the second time this has happened in just a span of 3 months. Does the PLA not patrol in small units at the minimum? If it is a single soldier incident again, then the higher ups better crack down on such dangerous activity. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Honestly, a court martial should be in order for the soldier if it was his fault.

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It could be that they were patrolling in small units but were spread out too far.

hashtagpls said:

The indians want war so they'll find out soon enough about PLA ops and tactics; might even be a good idea for Chinese SpecOps to blood themselves by topping a few Jawans in the dead of night.

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No, this isn't and shouldn't be how any of it works.

I can understand the PLA "needing" to conduct certain questionable exercises just like I can understand the Indians needing to do certain things. But at this point, this is blatant command or personnel failure and should be addressed by the PLA. It's not even a case of them being victims here and murdering soldiers without provocation is and ought to be a war crime. India and China are not officially at war. There is no idea for any side's spec op to do that as much as both sides probably prepare for the worst.

ougoah said:

No, this isn't and shouldn't be how any of it works.

I can understand the PLA "needing" to conduct certain questionable exercises just like I can understand the Indians needing to do certain things. But at this point, this is blatant command or personnel failure and should be addressed by the PLA. It's not even a case of them being victims here and murdering soldiers without provocation is and ought to be a war crime. India and China are not officially at war. There is no idea for any side's spec op to do that as much as both sides probably prepare for the worst.

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Knowing the FUBAR nature of war, i'd put it down to bored PLA soldiers daring each other to do stupid shit, hence command and personnel failure.

It's all over international news now, so India's going to come under pressure to release the PLA soldier. To do otherwise, would amount to war.

hashtagpls said:

Knowing the FUBAR nature of war, i'd put it down to bored PLA soldiers daring each other to do stupid shit, hence command and personnel failure.

It's all over international news now, so India's going to come under pressure to release the PLA soldier. To do otherwise, would amount to war.

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Let's hope not. This sounds like major disciplinary violation.

Kaeshmiri said:

This is the 2nd time a Chinese soldier has been held by India in the past few months

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Because the Indian Army is just sitting there, hunkered down. While the PLA is continually probing and expanding its operational capabilities in the area. That carries risks.

ougoah said:

Alone by himself? Scouting/spying probably and got caught.

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I doubt it, nothing is done 'solo' in the Army, not even recon. Most likely this guy just got split off from his patrol at night and wandered into enemy territory. Comms don't work well in mountainous terrain, it's easy to lose contact.

There's not much intel to be gained by India from this. They can't torture him or force him to reveal anything besides his serial number. Nor would he know much about operations, and whatever he knows (comms frequencies etc.) would have already been changed by now.

With that said, the PLA's high command is not gonna be happy about this. A lot of people are gonna get yelled at.