The first phase of disengagement between India and China at the Pangong Tso Lake in Eastern Ladakh has been completed, setting the stage for the 10th round of military commanders’ talks between the two countries tomorrow.

The announcement coincided with China for the first time acknowledging that it had lost four of its troops in the 15 June Galwan Valley clash with Indian soldiers though Russian and Western media have suggested that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had suffered as many as 45 casualties.

According to official sources, tomorrow’s meeting between the military commanders will review the situation in the wake of the pull-back from both the northern and southern banks of the Pangong Tso Lake and discuss disengagement at other friction points like Gogra, Hot Springs and strategically-located Depsang Plains.

The Indian Army had earlier released videos and photos showing thinning down of troops and dismantling of bunkers and camps by the Chinese military in the areas around the Pangong Tso Lake in line with the agreement reached between the two sides. The visuals showed the PLA using a bulldozer to flatten structures, and vehicles with troops and equipment preparing to retreat to rear bases.

After a ninemonth standoff, the two militaries had reached the agreement on disengagement at the Pangong Tso Lake that required both sides to withdraw the troops in a “phased, coordinated and verifiable” manner. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had last week made a statement in Parliament on the disengagement pact. Meanwhile, the PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military, said five Chinese frontier officers and soldiers stationed in the Karakoram Mountains have been recognised by the Central Military Commission of China (CMC) for their sacrifice in the border clash with India, including four posthumously. A total of 20 Indian soldiers died in the Galwan Valley clash, regarded as the worst in over four decades at the India-China border.

The daily said the CMC, the overall high command of the PLA headed by President Xi Jinping, has awarded Qi Fabao, the regimental commander from the PLA Xinjiang Military Command, who the newspaper said was seriously injured in the skirmish, the title of “Hero regimental commander for defending the border”.

Battalion commander Chen Hongjun was posthumously awarded the title of “Hero to defend the border,” and Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran received ‘First Class Merit’ titles. Three PLA soldiers were killed in the combat while another soldier died while crossing the icy river when he went to support his army mates, the newspaper said.

Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying that China unveiled the details of the incident to refute previous “disinformation” that stated China suffered greater casualties than India or that China incited the incident. It also blamed the Indian soldiers for the clash.