China and India: Nuclear-Armed Nations Clash—With Sticks and Stones

Chinese and Indian troops clashed at a location on their disputed border in the Himalayas, the Indian Defense Ministry announced on December 13. The violence erupted by the Tawang sector of India’s Arunachal Pradesh state four days before the announcement and resulted in numerous injuries on both sides.

• For decades, the 2,100-mile-long disputed border has been a source of friction between the two.
• Tensions escalated dramatically in June 2020 when hand-to-hand violence killed at least 23 Indian soldiers and as many as 43 Chinese.

India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said the most recent clash was triggered by Chinese troops attempting to “unilaterally” alter the status quo by trying to cross the de facto border between the two nations, called the line of actual control (lac).

A spokesperson for China’s People’s Liberation Army (pla) said it was Indian troops who had crossed the line.

The ensuing face-off led to a physical scuffle in which the Indian Army bravely prevented the pla from transgressing into our territory and compelled them to return to their posts.
—Rajnath Singh

Hours after the announcement, footage began circulating on Indian social media of a brawl between the two sides. The previously unreleased footage appears to be from a conflict that occurred along the lac on Sept. 28, 2021.

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeAsia/status/1602802741738446849

• Both China and India are armed with nuclear weapons.
• Both have tanks, artillery and a variety of firearms near the lac.
• Yet it was not with any formal weapons that soldiers fight in the region, but with stones, clubs and rods spiked with nails or wrapped in barbed wire.

Prophecy says: Tensions remain high, and in the near term, it is possible they could escalate into more border clashes. But the Trumpet believes a major conflict between China and India will not happen, and if isolated clashes do continue to erupt, they will be short-lived.

This is our basic forecast because of what Bible prophecy teaches about the role China and India will play in the third and final world war. The book of Revelation says one of the main players in this war will be a bloc of several Asian countries called “the kings of the east.” Ezekiel 38 gives ancient names referring to both modern China and modern India, showing that both will ally under Russian leadership in this eastern alliance. Read more in Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s booklet The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia.’