China's envoy to India says Galway face-off 'unfortunate incident'

New Delhi: China's Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, speaking at the China-India Youth forum, called the Galwan Valley clash an "unfortunate incident" and a "brief moment from the perspective of history".

The combat in June claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers, including 16 Bihar's commanding officer, Colonel Santosh Babu, many because of protracted exposure to sub-zero temperatures. As talks to resolve the stand-off at the LAC are currently at a stalemate, Weidong said that in the new century, bilateral relations should continue to move forward instead of backward.

"Not long ago, an unfortunate incident happened in the border areas that neither China nor India would like to see. Now we are working to handle it properly. It is a brief moment from the perspective of history," the transcript of his speech at the August 18 event, read.

He said that as two rising major neighbors, China and India should abandon the old mindset of drawing lines by ideology, and get rid of the old game of "One's gain is another's loss" and "zero-sum game". "Otherwise, you would be led astray and go down a wrong path," he added. "We need to see that friendly cooperation between China and India is the mainstream and the general trend," he said, adding that only by seeing to it could objective and rational judgement be maintained, and differences between the two sides could be handled.