Chinese police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College who were teaching at a Chinese university in the northeast city of Jilin, officials said yesterday.
A 55-year-old man surnamed Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner, Jilin police said. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him, as well as a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, they said.
The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, the US school said.
Photo: Reuters
The injured were rushed to a hospital and none of them were in a critical condition, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) told a daily briefing.
He added that police believe the attack in Jilin city’s Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, and the investigation is ongoing.
Cornell College president Jonathan Brand said in a statement that the instructors were attacked while at the park with a faculty member from Beihua, which is in an outlying part of Jilin. Monday was a public holiday in China.
Photo: AP
The US Department of State said in a statement that it was aware of reports of a stabbing and was monitoring the situation.
The attack happened as both Beijing and Washington are seeking to expand people-to-people exchanges to help bolster relations amid tensions over trade and such international issues as Taiwan, the South China Sea and the war in Ukraine.
An Iowa state lawmaker said on Instagram that his brother, David Zabner, had been wounded during a stabbing attack in Jilin.
US Representative Adam Zabner described his brother as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship.
“I spoke to David a few minutes ago, he is recovering from his injuries and doing well,” Adam Zabner wrote, adding that his brother was grateful for the care he received at a hospital.
News of the incident was suppressed in China, where the government maintains control on information about anything considered sensitive. News media outlets had not reported it.
Some social media accounts posted foreign media reports about the attack, but a hashtag about it was blocked on a popular portal, and photos and videos of the incident were quickly taken down.
Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser said in an e-mail that the college was still gathering information about what happened.
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