Solberg finally went live on national television in September, announcing that Norway would not pay any ransom but that efforts were continuing to negotiate for the hostage’s release. China’s foreign ministry identified its murdered citizen as Fan Jinghui, a 50-year-old freelance advertising consultant from western Beijing.
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Expressing condolences for Fan’s death and deep sympathies to his family, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, “the Chinese government strongly condemns the atrocity against humanity and the criminals must be brought to justice”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, is welcomed to the opening plenary session by Philippines President Benigno Aquino III at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Manila, Philippines, Thursday, November 19, 2015.
However, Hong sidestepped the question, repeating the earlier statement that China will further boost cooperation with the worldwide community against terrorism.
Nevertheless, China’s leaders may face pressure from public opinion to be seen to be backing up their words with actions: Among tens of thousands of comments on local news portal Sina.com on Thursday, one of the most praised said simply: “Destroy ISIS”.
ISIS English-language website DABIQ published ransom posters, mocking the victims.
Fan Jinghui is described as a former teacher from Beijing while Ole-Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad was once linked to a university in Trondheim and had written on his Facebook page in January that he had travelled to the Syrian city of Idlib.
“The Chinese government opposes all forms of terrorism and firmly cracks down on any violent and terrorist crime that challenges the baseline of human civilization”.
“I love reading about the history of science”, Fan said in the interview, which was part of a program profiling people without fixed careers.
Premier Li Keqiang promised to strengthen protection for Chinese living overseas.
While denouncing terrorism, China has not responded with military force or other overt actions as the US and a few European countries have.
China has not been actively involved in the fight against Islamic State, but the government is likely to come under pressure to step up its response following the killing of Mr Fan.
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“We must now, more than ever, stand united for what we believe in”.
