Associated PressBEIJING — 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 Tuesday.
The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, officials at the U.S. school said. 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.
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 video of the incident were quickly taken down.
According to a 2020 post on Beihua's website, the Chinese university uses American teaching methods and resources to give engineering students an international perspective and English-language ability.