Is this for real?

China offers help on Maoists

I’m dumbstruck. The Birthland/Fatherland/Revolutionland of Mao himself has rejected him?

In a significant announcement, China’s top envoy has declared that his country is ready to help India to crush its nagging Maoist insurgency that it once actively supported. [.] “If there is any help (you expect) from us to India to get rid of them, we will try to do our best,” the top diplomat said candidly. [.] “We are also wondering why they call themselves Maoists. We don’t like that. We don’t like that at home. We don’t have any connection with them at home. If they call themselves Maoists, we can’t stop that way. But definitely it (the Maoist movement in India) does not have any connection with the government of China.”

Or is it some very clever politics that China is playing? In which case, and given their ships parked in waters that matter to India, India needs to be utterly careful.