China’s Foreign Ministry admits to having met with representatives of Qaddafi’s regime in the hopes of buying weapons to fight back the insurgents. Chinese state-run arms companies were broached by Qaddafi representatives but no arms transactions ever actually took place. The Foreign Ministry denied that Chinese officials knew of any such meetings having ever taken place. While no reason was given for the arms deals not going through, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue did say that any such final deals must eventually be approved by their proper ministries to probably avoid any clandestine agreements. Among the weapons the Qaddafi representatives wanted to purchase were anti-aircraft arms like the US-made Stingray, except for its Chinese equivalent. These would undoubtedly have been employed against the NATO airstrikes launched against the regime in the beginning of the conflict. All of this is known because a Canadian journalist in Tripoli found documents detailing the negotiations outside in a garbage bin adjacent to a former Qaddafi supporter’s house.