There is a notion that if you are a diplomat, you always remain one. That is not exactly true. Richard Holbrooke’s account of the Afghan war has just appeared and he turns out to be a first-rate renegade. Now, how many countries would have a Holbrooke who dared to dissent (albeit secretly)? China never had one.
Which makes the reported remarks by the former Chinese ambassador to Pakistan Zhang Chunxiang at a media briefing in Beijing highly significant. Ambassador Zhang reflected the thinking in Beijing.
Succinctly put, Ambassador Zhang just stopped short of pointing finger at India for funding anti-China activities in Pakistan by extremist groups. He seemed to echo the long-standing Pakistani allegation that Indian intelligence is funding the separatist movement of Baluchi nationalists in Pakistan. Specifically, he held such terrorists “bought by some foreign countries” responsible for the 2004 attack on Chinese engineers who were working on the Gwadar Port project. The Indian security analysts may have their own thesis as to why Pakistan’s rebels are attacking Chinese projects, but Zhang obviously thinks it is subterfuge.
Ambassador Zhang said: “Those perpetrators were actually paid by some countries to commit the crime. It is difficult to investigate. There are some countries behind (the attack). I do not want to name them on this occasion. You know it, I know it. Everybody knows it.”
Delhi, of course, cannot take exception to what the senior Chinese diplomat said, because he never actually singled out India — and indeed he used the plural sense hinting at more than one single country — but the intriguing part is the timing of his “plain-speak”. he brought on to the table something out of Smiley’s world hardly a fortnight before the visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China.
http://atimes.com/2015/04/foreign-devils-on-the-silk-road-to-gwadar/
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