Hu Chunying, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, shared a 16-second video on Twitter on Sunday showing Chinese soldiers dancing at an altitude of 5,200 metres, captioning the clip, "Cool & cute!"
The video was shared amid claims that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is struggling with altitude sickness in the Himalayas, and reports that the PLA has replaced almost all of the soldiers at forward posts along the loosely demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) with troops in their early 20s.
The Logistic Support Department of China's Central Military Commission said in the first week of November that it had supplied a range of portable equipment to troops stationed in areas 3,000 metres above sea level to improve "their fighting abilities in the hostile environment" of the Himalayas.
Several media outlets in India suggested that Chinese soldiers need more than 10 days to adapt to a harsh atmosphere where oxygen levels are only 60 percent of that available in the plains. Temperatures in the forward areas also drop to 30 below zero (Celsius) around January.
The video, it seems, has not gone down well with Indians, who described the Chinese troops as a "babydoll army", and claimed that the video was part of a propaganda campaign to show off their war preparedness at high altitudes.
India and China have deployed over 50,000 troops in the western sector of the Line of Actual Control, where a violent faceoff erupted in June 2020 over construction works in forward areas, killing 20 Indian soldiers and four PLA troops.
One Twitter user reacted to the video with the suggestion: "Alternative careers in the hotspots of Wan Chai".
The 23rd meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was held on 18 November. The two sides agreed that in the interim they should "continue to ensure a stable ground situation and avoid any untoward incident".