Recent violence in the China's western Xinjiang province has resulted in more than a dozen deaths and prompted an aggressive security response by Chinese authorities, who assert the unrest is being driven by Muslim separatists trained in Pakistan.
The accusation, leaked to China's state media Monday, came as the head of Pakistani intelligence was making a visit to Beijing and exposed a potential sticking-point in the oft-celebrated alliance between the two countries.
According to Kerry Brown, who heads the Asia program at Chatham House in London, it also shed light on the delicate balance that characterizes the three-way relationship between China, Pakistan and India, which has long fumed over the training of extremists in Pakistan.