Qualla: Kashmir Princess

Kashmir Princess: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. Zhou Enlai was supposed to be on that plane. On 11 April 1955, a chartered Air India Lockheed L-749A Constellation designated Flight 300 lifted off from Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport before dawn, carrying Chinese and Eastern European delegates to the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Somewhere over the South China Sea, a time bomb detonated. The aircraft, christened the Kashmir Princess, crashed into the water at roughly 12 degrees north, 113 degrees east. Sixteen people died. Three survived. The man the bomb was meant to kill was not aboard.

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0

Kashmir Princess: The Target Who Wasn't There

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. Zhou Enlai had every reason to be on Flight 300. As Chinese Premier, he was heading to the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in Jakarta, a landmark gathering of newly independent nations seeking a voice between the superpowers. The conference represented exactly the kind of diplomati...

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0

Kashmir Princess: A Janitor, a Bomb, and Six Hundred Thousand Dollars

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. The Indonesian board of inquiry announced on 26 May that a time bomb fitted with an American-made MK-7 detonator had brought down the Kashmir Princess, and that the device was almost certainly planted in Hong Kong. Suspicion quickly fell on Chow Tse-ming, a janitor at Hong Kong A...

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0

Kashmir Princess: Shadows Within Shadows

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. China accused the United States of orchestrating the bombing from the start. The CIA had indeed considered assassinating Zhou Enlai around this time, though the Church Committee -- the US Senate investigation into intelligence abuses -- reported that such plans were disapproved a...

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0

Kashmir Princess: A Sea That Holds Its Secrets

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. The Kashmir Princess went down in one of the world's most contested bodies of water. The South China Sea, where the wreckage settled, would become the stage for decades of territorial disputes, naval standoffs, and competing sovereignty claims that continue today. In 2005, the Xi...

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0