China to send team to Pakistan for bus blast investigation

But the country refrains from calling it a ‘bomb attack’

China said on Thursday it will send a team to Pakistan to help investigate a blast on a bus that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, after it backed away from an earlier assertion that the explosion was a bomb attack. Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a regular briefing that China would cooperate closely with Pakistan in the investigation. Wednesday’s blast sent the bus crashing into a ravine in Khyber-Paktunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan, where Chinese engineers have for several years been working on hydroelectric projects as part of Beijing’s massive Belt and Road Initiative. China is a close ally and major investor in neighbouring Pakistan, and various anti-Pakistani government militants have in the past attacked Chinese projects.