4 Cornell instructors stabbed in China
BEIJING -- U.S. officials worked Tuesday to bring home four injured instructors from Iowa's Cornell College who were stabbed in the northeast Chinese city of Jilin, where they were teaching. Four instructors from Iowa's Cornell College were stabbed in the northeast Chinese city of Jilin, where they were teaching. The attacker, identified as 55-year-old man surnamed Cui, stabbed the foreigners and three others with him, and also stabbed a Chinese person who intervened. Among the injured was Cornell College student David Zabner, who was descending a mountain when he heard a scream. The incident was not disclosed as a motive for the attack. The attack occurred during a public holiday in China, where news of the incident was suppressed. The U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, expressed concern over the stabbing and expressed hope for their recovery.
发表 : 10 个月前 经过 在 Politics General
BEIJING -- U.S. officials worked Tuesday to bring home four injured instructors from Iowa's Cornell College who were stabbed in the northeast Chinese city of Jilin, where they were teaching.
Jilin city police said a 55-year-old man surnamed 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, police said.
A police statement did not give any indication of the motive for the attack.
The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, officials at the U.S. school said.
Among the wounded was David Zabner, who was descending a mountain when he heard a scream.
"I turned around to find a man brandishing a knife at me. I didn't immediately realize what was happening. I thought my coworkers had been pushed, and he, for some reason, was trying to push me," Zabner told Iowa Public Radio News from his hospital room.
"And then I looked down at my shoulder and realized, 'I'm bleeding. I've been stabbed.'"
He and the other injured were rushed to a hospital for treatment, none of them in critical condition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing Tuesday. He said police believe the attack in Jilin city's Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, and the investigation is ongoing.
Zabner's brother, Rep. Adam Zabner, a state lawmaker from Iowa, described his brother in a social media post as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship.
He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he is not currently doing any additional interviews in order to focus on getting his brother home to the U.S. And David Zabner didn't immediately respond to a Facebook message seeking comment.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and several members of the state's congressional delegation posted on social media that they were working with officials to assist in any way possible, including in bringing the instructors home.
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 600 miles northeast of Beijing. Monday was a public holiday in China.
Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, posted on the social media site X that he was "angered and deeply troubled by the stabbing" of three U.S. citizens and one non-citizen resident of Iowa. "We are doing all we can do help them and hope for their full & speedy recovery," he wrote.
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.
News of the incident was suppressed in China, where the government maintains control on information about anything considered sensitive. There are limited reports about it, but China's state media have strictly adhered to the official account.
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.
Visser said the private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, partners with Beihua University. A college news release from 2018, when the program started, says Beihua provides funding for Cornell professors to travel to China to teach a portion of courses in computer science, mathematics and physics over a two-week period.
Information for this article was contributed by Summer Ballentine and Heather Hollingsworth of The Associated Press.
话题: Academia, Crime, DNC