HONG KONG — Four American instructors from a small Iowa college were injured in a knife attack during a teaching trip to China, school and U.S. officials said.
The four instructors at Cornell College, a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, were injured “in a serious incident” during a daytime visit to a public park, the school’s president, Jonathan Brand, confirmed in a statement.
They were accompanied by a faculty member from the school’s Chinese partner institution, Beihua University, during the attack in the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin.
Brand said the school had contacted the four and was helping them.
A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials were aware of the reports and monitoring the situation, but declined to comment further.
As of Tuesday noon local time, there had been no statements about the incident from Chinese authorities.
Iowa State Representative Adam Zabner confirmed that his brother, David Zabner, was among the victims. He said his brother received stitches from being stabbed in the arm and remained hospitalized but was well and in good spirits.
David Zabner, a Tufts University graduate student who is an alumnus of Cornell College and has taught there, had participated in the exchange program before and returned this year, Adam Zabner said.
Details about the condition of the other victims, who have not yet been publicly identified, were unclear. It was also unclear whether the teachers were targeted or randomly attacked.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said on X that she was in contact with the Iowa federal delegation and the State Department in response to “this horrific attack.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said on X that she and her team have been in contact with Cornell College and the State Department and “prayed for a speedy recovery for everyone.”
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, whose district includes Mount Vernon, said in a statement that she was trying to contact the U.S. Embassy to ensure the victims could leave China as quickly as possible after being treated. your injuries.
The attack occurred as the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, promoted people-to-people exchanges as part of an effort to improve global bilateral relations. U.S. authorities are considering easing a Level 3 travel advisory for mainland China, its second-highest alert level, in part due to concerns that it could be discouraging such exchanges.
During a visit to the US last November, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing was ready to invite 50,000 young Americans to China for exchange and study programs over the next five years.
The number of Americans studying in China has fallen sharply over the past decade, especially during the country’s three years of pandemic isolation. There are currently nearly 300,000 Chinese students in the United States, while there are fewer than 900 Americans studying in China, according to U.S. data.
Although China has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, knife attacks are not uncommon.
Chinese state media, which frequently reports on Chinese citizens being victims of violence in the U.S., was silent on the stabbing attack, although “Jilin” was trending on the social media platform Weibo on Tuesday.
Prominent Chinese commentator Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the state-backed nationalist tabloid Global Times, said he hoped it was an isolated incident that would not “negatively impact personnel exchanges between China and other countries.”
“Our people are generally very friendly towards foreign tourists who appear at markets and tourist attractions,” he said in a Weibo post. “Regardless of the attacker’s motive in this incident, this is an isolated case in the broader context of Chinese society.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
