ISLAMABAD: The Chinese embassy has said all Confucius Institutes remained operational in Pakistan and none had been shut down, two weeks after a woman suicide bomber blew herself up on a university campus in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three Chinese teachers.
Last week, the Karachi University, which houses the Confucius Institute, said all the remaining 12 Chinese teachers at the center had left Pakistan with the remains of colleagues killed in the attack. The university did not confirm if the teachers would return but said the Institute had not been shut down.
“All teaching activities at various Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in Pakistan would be carried out through online or offline ways by the Chinese and Pakistani teachers and the partnering universities of China,” the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in Islamabad said, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
The spokesperson confirmed some Chinese teachers had returned to China for summer vacations following discussions with concerned departments in Pakistan, adding that they would return to Pakistan “at an appropriate time.”
In the meantime, he said, China “plans to provide more quality teaching resources to meet the needs of the Pakistani students to learn the Chinese language.”
The attack at Karachi University was claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army, which said a woman suicide bomber carried out the attack.
Chinese nationals have frequently been targeted in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, where Beijing has heavily invested in the Belt and Road Initiative.
The Karachi blast was the first major attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan since last year when a suicide bomber blew up a passenger bus in July, killing 13 people, including nine Chinese workers employed at the Dasu Hydropower Project in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
