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Foreigners need not fear attacks: Beijing

China said yesterday foreigners would be safe during the Beijing Olympics in August, after a Chinese man armed with explosives boarded a tourist bus in Xi'an and took 10 Australian travel agents hostage before being shot dead by police.

"Especially on the occasion of the Beijing Olympics, there will be a number of foreign tourists in Beijing and we will definitely carry out more effective measures in this regard," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

The motive behind Wednesday's incident is still not clear. All 10 of the Australians and a translator were unharmed.

"There is no indication this was particularly aimed at Australia or Australians," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told his country's Nine Network television yesterday.

High-profile violence aimed at tourists in China is rare.

One of the hostages told a friend and a family member by phone that most of the Australians ran from the bus as soon as they saw the man had explosives strapped to his body.

"He was pacing up and down the bus, they couldn't understand what he was saying, but they said by the look on their guide Eric's face they knew something was amiss," said Sue Wynne, a colleague of one of the hostages, 22-year-old Rhiannon Dunkley. "And then he turned around, opened up his jacket and he had a bomb strapped to him."

Nine of the hostages left the bus quickly, but a 48-year-old woman from New South Wales state stayed on the bus with the group's translator during the nearly three-hour standoff with police on Wednesday morning.

A sniper finally shot and killed the man, Xia Tao, police said.

Smith said the tourists were planning to return to Australia later yesterday.

All were travel agents from three Australian states who were on a tour organized by Sydney-based company China Bestours, the company's general manager Jimmy Liu said.

"This is an educational tour for our travel agents," Liu said. "They sell our products and we bring them to China so they can know more about our product."
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