The Chinese government on Thursday said it "strongly condemned" Wednesday’s blasts in Mumbai, adding that it was ready to work with India to "jointly fight against terrorism".
"We are shocked by the heavy casualties and losses caused by the blasts," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement.
"China firmly opposes terrorism in any form and will work with the international community, including India, to jointly fight against terrorism in order to maintain the peace and stability of the region and the world as a whole," the statement said.
In a regular press briefing later on Thursday, Mr. Hong said the Chinese government "expresses its sincere solicitude" to the Indian government and to those affected by the blasts.
"China," he said, "firmly opposes terrorism in all its manifestations". "We believe that terrorism is a common enemy of the international community, which must make efforts to crack down on terrorism to safeguard peace and stability of the region and the world."
"We believe in order to eradicate terrorism, we must address both the symptoms and root causes of it."
"Terrorism," he added, "cannot be linked to specific ethnic groups or religions."
Asked about concerns that the attacks may have been carried out by groups with the aim of disrupting talks between India and Pakistan, Mr. Hong said China "supported India and Pakistan improving their relations".
"Both India and Pakistan are friendly neighbours of China, and also major countries of South Asia," he said.
"The improvement of India and Pakistan relations can only be conducive to peace and stability of South Asia, but also of great important to the peace and stability of whole Asia."
Keywords: Mumbai serial blasts, Zaveri Bazar, Dadar, Opera House, Mumbadevi temple, LeT, IM, terrorist attack, Chidambaram, NIA, Sino-Indian ties
It is good that China and Pak have condemned the incident, but will it change anything? The key to all these problems lies somewhere else: will India ever have a professional police force: 1. Police who act with no bias , 2. who do not do 'roll call' from poor vegetable vendors 3. who do not have big tummies but are fit and well equipped 4. who would respond within 2 minutes to any emergency call anywhere in the country, 5. who wouldn't ask your salary when stopped due to traffic violation 6. who are a bunch of people with professionalism, courtesy and respect. Until such times India can never overcome such threats. It doesn't matter whether chinese, americans or pakis condemn the incidents, we need big, really big changes in our own society starting from professional policing. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time that the next incident will happen.
In future, countries will be focusing on internal / external terrorism in stead of wars. Wars are expensive. If China wants to become a super power, it should collaborate with countries in fighting the latest menace of terrorism. Also, it has to force its long time friend Pakistan from encouraging terrorist organisations.
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