The editor of Global Times, the China state-affiliated media, said that China’s missiles and special forces “can be put into action” in Pakistan if Islamabad’s “capability is not enough”.
The comment by Hu Xijin, the editor of Global Times, is significant as he heads one of the most important information outlets affiliated with the Chinese state. His comment came in the aftermath of a major attack against Chinese nationals in Pakistan.
“The cowardly terrorists behind this attack dare not show up until now. But they will definitely be found out and must be exterminated,” Xijin wrote on Twitter. “If Pakistan’s capability is not enough, with its consent, China’s missiles and special forces can be put into action,” he wrote.
Xijin is the editor of The Global Times, the paper owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece the People’s Daily.
The Global Times had earlier reported that the shuttle bus blast in Pakistan is confirmed as “a terrorist attack” and reported that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has urged authorities in Pakistan to bring the perpetrators to justice in a phone call with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Nine Chinese nationals and four others were killed when the bus in which they were travelling was hit by a blast that sent it rolling down a ravine in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province of Pakistan.
China said a day after the blast, according to Reuters news agency, that it will send a team to Pakistan to help in the investigation of the blast after the country backtracked on an initial assertion that the incident was a bomb attack.
