Beijing: Chinese police detained a 55-year-old suspect surnamed Cui for allegedly stabbing four college instructors from the United States in the northeastern city of Jilin, according to officials. The college instructors from Iowa's Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University and were attacked with a knife by the man on Monday.
Jilin City police said Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him and also stabbed a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, according to the police.
However, none of the attacked college instructors are in critical condition after they were rushed to the hospital for treatment, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian. Lin said the police believed the attack in Jilin's Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment.
Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser said the college partners with Beihua University, which provides funding for Cornell professors to travel to China to teach a portion of courses in computer science, mathematics and physics for two weeks. About one-third of the core courses in the programme are taught by American professors.
What did US officials say?
Meanwhile, 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, an industrial city about 1,000 km (600 miles) northeast of Beijing. Monday was a public holiday in China.
An Iowa state lawmaker posted a statement on Instagram saying his brother, David Zabner, had been wounded during a stabbing attack in Jilin. US lawmaker Adam Zabner described his brother as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship. However, he said his brother was doing well and was grateful for the care he received.
Like in most cases, the news of the incident was heavily suppressed in China, where the government maintains a tight control on any 'sensitive' information. 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 video of the incident were quickly taken down.
Biden, Xi's plans for closer ties
The State Department said in a statement 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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping had unveiled a plan to invite 50,000 young Americans to China in the next five years, though Chinese diplomats say a travel advisory by the US State Department has discouraged Americans from visiting China. Some American universities have suspended their China programmes due to the travel advisory.
The US State Department has issued a Level 3 travel advisory - the second highest warning level- for mainland China citing arbitrary detentions as well as exit bans that could prevent Americans from leaving the country. China has insisted that the "isolated incident" will not affect its people-to-people exchanges with the US.
(with AP inputs)
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