Turns out China sent out a squad of top martial arts fighters, no wonder they wiped out the Indian troops:
China sent martial artists to India border before deadly clash
China reinforced its troops near the Indian border with mountain climbers and martial arts fighters shortly before a deadly clash this month, state media reported. Tensions are common between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in the mountainous border terrain, but this month's fighting was their deadliest encounter in over 50 years. Five new militia divisions including former members of a Mount Everest Olympic torch relay team and fighters from a mixed martial arts club presented themselves for inspection at Lhasa on June 15, official military newspaper China National Defense News reported.
State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of hundreds of new troops lining up in the Tibetan capital. Tibet commander Wang Haijiang said the Enbo Fight Club recruits would "greatly raise the organization and mobilization strength" of troops and their "rapid response and support ability,"
Chinese and Indian troops clashed later that day in the most violent confrontation between the two powers in decades, in the Ladakh region 1,300 kilometres away. India says 20 of its own soldiers were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat that day, while China suffered an unknown number of casualties. Both sides have blamed each other for the battle, which was fought with rocks and batons without any shots fired. India said Thursday that it had reinforced troops in the contested Himalayan border region, saying it was matching a similar buildup by China.
India claims Chinese troops ambushed Indian soldiers and forced them down a ridge where they had gone to remove a Chinese "encroachment".
A bilateral accord prevents the use of guns, but the fighting was still fierce, with rudimentary weapons. China has in turn accused Indian soldiers of twice crossing the Line of Actual Control, the unofficial boundary, provoking its troops. The two countries fought a war over the border in 1962. There is an understanding between the nuclear-armed neighbours that their troops in the disputed and inhospitable region will not use firearms.
Most countries with high mountain borders have specialized elite military divisions, in France the Chasseurs Alpins, set up in the 19th century, are known to have the toughest/hardest training of all military branches, they saw recent action in Afghanistan mountain terrain:
WW1 in the Alps
The twist here in the Himalayas is the hand to hand/no firearm combat rule, kind of hard to top Chinese martial artists with cold weapons...