In what can be termed as an explosive revelation, Dr. Ma Xiangwu, Functionary, Communist Party of China, People Republic of China on Tuesday said there is a China camp in Taliban which has 320 Chinese nationals recruited in it.
"In Taliban, there is a China camp which has around 320 Chinese. They work very closely with friendly countries including Pakistan, where Pakistan repatriates or catches terrorists. Last year, some of them came back to China," he told ANI.
Maintaining that the Chinese government's position on anti-terrorism has been consistent for many years, Xiangwu said they need to work under a U.N. framework on countering terrorism.
"China has a very strong stand to tell the world that terrorism has no difference. There is no good terrorism, no bad terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism. It is the same. We need to tackle terrorism on the same front," he said.
"In the summit, out of the four organisations, the U.S. only treated one as a terrorist organisation and rejected the other three. This is something China is not very happy with," he further said.
In its response to a poser on China rejecting India Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) bid, Xiangwu justified saying that India and Pakistan share the same position so if India can be voted in, so should Pakistan be.
"This is his (Xiangwu) personal observation and analysis, not Chinese government's. Two reasons for China not supporting India's NSG bid. India did not sign on one of the papers and did not follow protocol. So, China believes there was a flaw in the process. Second, India and Pakistan position in NSG are similar. So China believes if India can be voted then why Pakistan cannot be voted in too...There should be no discrimination between the two," he said.
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Similarly, responding to a poser on China supporting Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leader Masood Azhar, Xiangwu said China is considering its decision and analysing if it is going to burgeon into a bigger problem for their country.
"The decision in Masood's case is something which China is considering, is investigating. We are considering whether to support this particular decision. Will it grow into a bigger problem for China. So, this is the consideration they have been putting in their efforts into," he said.
Emphasising on China's intentions to maintain good relations with India, Xiangwu said they hope their neighbour acts wisely and tries to understand third party's malintentions to sabotage the duo's relationship.
"China intends to be a good friend of India. So similarly, China hopes India reciprocates in the same way. At the same time, China believes that if some third party is trying to sabotage the relationship between China and India, India needs to be wise and not work on others' schemes. Intention of China is to work with India and maintain log-term relationship," he said.