Fact Check: Viral list of Chinese soldiers killed at Galwan valley is FALSE

By NN Dharmasena

Hyderabad: For the last couple of days, many users on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp are sharing a list of 55 Chinese names. The users claim that these are the names of Chinese soldiers who were killed by the Indian army in the faceoff at the Galwan Valley.

The list is accompanied by few photos in which some Chinese PLA soldiers are carrying boxes, some are paying respects. The people sharing them believe that the pictures being shared with the list are coffins of the Chinese soldiers, who died at Galwan valley.

Fact Check:

The alleged list of Chinese soldiers has a two-line heading in Chinese script. We tried to translate it using Google Lens. It translated the script as: "We express our deepest condolences to our families and are firmly committed to protecting the sovereignty and integrity of the country".

So, there was no immediate clue about the list of names.

Then we tried to reverse image search on Google, but it didn't yield any results. So, we started to search the names on Google and found that the names are of Generals who served in the People's Liberation Army of China.

Continuing the search, we found that all 55 names in the list are available on the Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generals_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China.

The makers of the list collected the names of 31 Senior Generals appointed in 1955, 19 generals appointed on June 8, 1994, and 5 generals appointed on June 7, 1993.

So, we understand that the list of names claimed to be of the Chinese soldiers killed in the faceoff with Indian soldiers at Galwan Valley is FALSE.

To find the authenticity of the pictures being shared as the coffins of the Chinese soldiers died at Galwan Valley, we conducted a reverse image search on Google. Each of the images leads to a set of photos when the remains of 10 Chinese soldiers who were killed in the 1950-53 Korea war were buried on April 4, 2019, in China after being restored from the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The photo albums of the same can be found on the website of the NX News and Facebook page of China Xinhua News at the following URLs.

http://www.nxnews.net/tp/tjxw/201904/t20190404_6248748.html?spm=zm5078-001.0.0.1.PU4Pih

The facebook translation of the post on April 5, 2019, by Xinhua is "The remains of 10 Chinese soldiers who were killed in 1950-53Korea war were buried on Thursday (yesterday) in China after being restored from the Republic of Korea (RoK)".

China conducted a funeral ceremony at the dead park in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province, a funeral that was attended by more than 200 people including government and military leaders, veterans of the Korea war, their families, and citizens.

The remains of the 10 soldiers were restored to China on Wednesday.

"We have done this ceremony to remember those soldiers because their courageous spirit will be a treasure of China's nation," Qian Eng, director of the affairs of veterans soldiers said in his memorial speech.

Hence, the claims made by the people sharing the list and photos on social media are FALSE!!