Kashmir Princess files declassified

relations and sending ambassadors.

Among other documents, the files included material about the Kashmir Princess incident, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The bombing was an apparent bid to assassinate former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

On the night of April 11, 1955, the chartered Air-India flight was carrying a small delegation of Chinese and East Europeans — mainly journalists — from Hongkong to Indonesia to attend the Afro-Asian Bandung conference.

At about 18,000 feet, a time bomb detonated in the wheel bay of the plane, blowing a hole in the fuel tank. The flight engineer, navigator and first officer escaped, but the remaining 16 passengers, including seven Chinese crew members, died.

Zhou was not on board the plane. He did not leave China until April 14, three days after the bombing, when he flew to Rangoon to meet former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Burmese leader U. Nu before continuing on to Bandung.

According to historians, evidence suggests Zhou knew of the assassination plot and changed his travel plan, although he did not stop a decoy delegation from taking his place.

The Kashmir Princess was scheduled to fly to Rangoon to pick Zhou up for his trip to Indonesia. China declassified a batch of diplomatic files for the first time this January. More declassified files will be opened in batches, the Foreign Ministry said. An official with the ministry’s archives said over 2,000 diplomatic files from 1949 and 1955 will be opened, and that some of the files from 1956 and 1960 will be opened in late 2005 or early 2006.

According to China’s archives law and other regulations, historical files should be open to the public 30 years after their creation.