The Beijinger reported the attacks were committed by the same woman Sunday morning. She apparently made disparaging remarks about the victims’ nationalities immediately before attacking.

The victim of the first attack was a French expat cycling on Xinyuan South Road northwest of the Capital Mansion residential high-rise. The Beijinger quotes a person who talked to the French victim who said the assailant yelled “American! American” in Chinese as she attacked with a knife.

The second attack occurred as a Jamaican expat was departing a Sunday church service for foreign passport holders at Capital Mansion Athletic Club. As the victim was exiting the parking lot, she was approached by the attacker who asked in Mandarin, “Do you speak Chinese?” Before the Jamaican expat could answer, she was attacked.

Both victims sustained wounds in the attacks, and were treated at the nearby Raffles Medical Clinic for non-severe injuries.

The knife-wielding assailant was last seen in the back of a Public Security Bureau vehicle, in which she was whisked away (shown above).

Although rare, violent crimes targeting foreigners have occurred before in Beijing, sometimes resulting in fatalities.

On the first day of competition during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, the father-in-law of the US volleyball coach was fatally stabbed to death while visiting a local tourist attraction. Todd Bachman died from his wounds while his attacker, a 47 year-old Chinese national named Tang Yongming, killed himself by immediately jumping off the balcony of the 130-foot tall Drum Tower.

Other violent attacks targeting foreign nationals have been blamed on mental illness.

In 2012,  62 year-old American Howard Thomas Mills was stabbed to death in Beijing’s Xicheng District. The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau released a statement saying the suspect arrested in Mills’ stabbing, 35 year-old An Libo, was believed to have suffered from a mental disorder.

An American was one of two deaths that occurred from a knife attack at Beijing’s Joy City Mall in 2013. Xinhua reported the 27 year-old assailant from Shandong, who was immediately captured by police, suffers from an undisclosed mental illness.

Last year, a man wielding a sword attacked a French expat and his Chinese wife at Taikoo Mall in Sanlitun, resulting in the wife’s death. Unlike other the attacks, the assailant was not said to have suffered from mental illness; instead, Beijing police said the attacker, a man named Gao from Jilin, “randomly” chose his victims and attacked them for “no reason”. However, the People’s Daily quoted a friend of the French victim who said he was asked if he was an American citizen just before the attack.

Last Christmas, the UK and US embassies warned of a possible threat against foreign nationals in the Sanlitun area, although no threat ever materialized.

The post Two Foreigners in Beijing Attacked with Knives Near Sanlitun appeared first on The Nanfang.

Yesterday’s shocking attack at Beijing’s upscale Sanlitun area may have people wondering what caused this horrible tragedy. Beijing police there isn’t much to explain because the assailant committed the crimes “for no reason”, but reports circulating in social media point to a man who was angry at foreigners in China.

Beijing police say the suspect in the stabbings is a 25 year-old man named Gao from Tonghua, Jilin Province. Gao is described to have attacked two pedestrians, a French man and a woman from Shandong Province believed to be his wife who died in hospital. Chinese reports don’t mention any relationship between the two victims or to their attacker. The report also says the attack took place at the southern entrance to the local bar street, even though pictures show the victims and the attacker located at the public square in front of the popular Tai Koo Mall.

Speculation is running rampant in social media, however, that the man was angry at foreigners in China.

@prchovanec @zhongnanhai Victim was friend’s friend’s fiancee. Motivation was apparently nationalist — “Chinese who sleep w/ 老外 should die.”

— Jordan Phillips (@jordanp) August 14, 2015

Wechat message about the murder in sanlitun. Just awful pic.twitter.com/OjU4KMCs7L — Bill Bishop (@niubi) August 13, 2015

Sanlitun sword attack does have Boxer echoes. https://t.co/jrv6auAPg0

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 14, 2015

Tai Koo Mall in Sanlitun has been part of other recent incidents. A promotional campaign involving several men dressed up as “Spartans” from the film 300 were arrested by police on a pedestrian bridge immediately adjacent to Tai Koo Mall for “disrupting public order”.

The post Police Have No Motive for Sanlitun Stabbing, but Social Media Does appeared first on The Nanfang.

Police have captured a man suspected of violently attacking people with a knife near People’s Square in Shanghai which left two people hurt.

The incident took place around 12:30 today near the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall at the corner of Tibet Central Road and Jiujiang Road. A 59 year-old traffic warden and a 20 year-old pedestrian were injured in the attack, with the former suffering head wounds and leaving trails of blood on the ground. The victims have been taken to hospital and are described as having non-life threatening injuries.

The traffic warden, Fang Jiang, said he kicked the suspect when he saw him trying to attack people with a fruit knife. Fang said he wanted to get the attacker’s attention so that no one else would get hurt.

Police are said to have nabbed the suspect soon after the attack began. No word on the motive and the victims did not know their attacker.

Caijing reports that a foreigner helped subdue the suspect by hitting him, while Shanghai Daily reports the foreigner grabbed the attackers knife before police arrived.

The post Knife Attack in Downtown Shanghai Leaves 2 Injured appeared first on The Nanfang.

The attack happened at 8:18am when people in the public square outside the station were attacked by three people with knives. Police shot and killed one of the attackers, and apprehended another. One officer received a knife injury to his right hand in trying to subdue the suspect. However, a third suspect was able to get away.

All nine victims were sent to hospital, and four remain in serious condition.

“I saw three people lying on the ground, one grandmother in her 50s who was chopped on her neck, a girl was chopped on her arm and an older man chopped on the back of his head,” said one eyewitness to the South China Morning Post. Two attackers apparently accosted people coming out of the train station, while the other attacked people nearby. The three attackers are described as ethnic Uyghurs from China’s northwest Xinjiang region.

The motive of the suspect is still unknown. The square in front of the train station was closed for a while following the attacks, but things have since returned to normal.

Train station attacks have happened before in Guangzhou. There was an attack at Guangzhou Railway Station in May 2014 that left six injured and another attack in Shenzhen in April last year.

There was also a deadly terrorist attack in Kunming, Yunnan last year that left 29 people dead.

The post 9 Injured in Knife Attack at Guangzhou Railway Station appeared first on The Nanfang.

A man attacked several people on the street with a knife before being subdued by police shortly after 7pm near Kemulang West Road in Tianhe District at the intersection of Lanyuan Street and Lanyuan New Street.

Reports listing the number of injured victims have varied, with China.com reporting six injured, Reuters reporting seven and iFeng reporting eight.

The injured were sent to Guangzhou Armed Police Hospital for medical treatment. None of their injuries are said to be life-threatening. The ages of the victims range from 19 to 55. The majority of the injuries were either head or hand injuries.

The suspect is said to be a 32 year-old man from Hunan named Fan. Victims say he began slashing people without saying anything or without any expression on his face. A motive isn’t known yet. Fan is in hospital now with injuries to his head.

Although the investigation by police is still in progress, it has been revealed to the media that a history of mental illness or inebriation may have been a factor.

Related:

• Knife-Wielding Expat Shot Dead By Police in Downtown Foshan
• Breaking: Wuhan Inter-City Bus Hijacked by Attacker With A Knife
• Guangdong Student Stabs Teacher 10 Times In Ambush Attack
• Police Open Fire On Hostage-Taker at Guangzhou Bus Terminal, One Dead
• Knife Attack at Guangzhou Train Station Injures Six People

Photos: hc360

The post Random Knife Attack In Downtown Guangzhou Sends Eight People to Hospital appeared first on The Nanfang.

A third-year junior middle school student named Xie knifed a female teacher ten times in an attack described as an “ambush”. The incident occurred at around 5pm on June 18 on Baoyuan Road near a China Construction Bank in Kaiping, near the City of Jiangmen. Xie was apprehended at the scene by an off-duty police officer and a crowd of bystanders.

Today, police confirmed that the stabbing victim was Xie’s primary school teacher from a school he had graduated from three years prior.

UPDATE 9:51pm June 19: Some additional details left out from our report: Xie explains that the reason he attacked his former schoolteacher is because her “discipline was too strict”. Meanwhile, the victim has non-life threatening injuries.

Photos: Southern Metropolis Report

The post Guangdong Student Stabs Teacher 10 Times In Ambush Attack [UPDATED] appeared first on The Nanfang.

However, Guangdong has now been given the dubious honor of being called the province with the worst public image in China according to a blue book report published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The report compiled more than 2,000 media reports concerning public safety, social order, the environment, public services and the performance of government officials and ranked them in terms of public image, province by province.

Tang Jun, editor-in-chief of the report and director of the Crisis Management Center at Renmin University, told Xinhua that he believes the report is a warning of the risks of the country’s rapid transformation.

We can only surmise that the culmination of all these varied awards can means that it is nice to live in Guangdong, but you shouldn’t ruin it by thinking.

Related stories that may somehow pertain to Guangdong’s public image:

• Hundreds of “Naked Officials” Punished in Guangdong
• 1,000 “Naked Officials” Netted In Guangdong Crackdown
• Guangdong Official Sacked Over Nude Photos Published by Mistress
• 30,000 Workers Strike in Dongguan, Robots Planned as Replacements
• Strikes On The Rise as Workers Set To Be Replaced By Robots
• Scenery is Nice But Salaries are Low in the Pearl River Delta
• One Dead in Maoming Protest, Contradicting Government Denials
• Fires and Overturned Police Cars in Guangzhou After Mass Incident
• Picture This: Guangdong River Turns Bright Red
• Shenzhen Residents Protest “Smelliest Landfill in History” By Giving It an Award
• Report: Guangzhou Has Reached Critical Mass, Can’t Take Any More People
• Relax: All Those Sparrows In Jiangmen Aren’t Sick From Avian Flu
• New Avian Flu Cases Bring Total to 3 Since Live Poultry Ban
• Eyewitness Accounts Depict Horrors of Guangzhou Railway Station Attack
• Knife Attack Rumor Launches Stampede on Guangzhou Metro

Photo: Nanfang

The post Guangdong Has The Worst Public Image Of All Provinces In China appeared first on The Nanfang.

RELATED: Panic in Shenzhen After Stabbing Rumor Spreads

The text at the beginning of this video reads (text missing from the truncated Liveleak version as are shots of police, but retains the suspenseful music nonetheless):

Knife Attack at Dongmen Pedestrian Street in Shenzhen Verified as an Online Rumor by Police

On the afternoon of May 25, information spread online stating a knife attack had occurred at Dongmen pedestrian walkway. When police rushed to the scene, they discovered there was no such case, but instead the chaos was due to a rack being knocked down in a subway shop by a person with a mental illness; this led to the surrounding crowd dispersing and causing panic. Here, QQ Live Video has obtained surveillance video of the scene.

Wait, so all this panic and people running for their lives was caused by one guy pushing down a rack in a store? Based upon the scant information we have, we can only surmise the guy who pushed down the shelf must be eight feet tall and works for Tywin Lannister, or that the rack that got knocked over must have held some kind of panic potion (conveniently bottled in fragile glass mason jars), or something to do with the detail of mental illness that always gets mentioned in stories like this.

They’re not the only ones. Shenzhen Daily reports this story with the following line:

Instead, police said the panic was caused by a suspected mental patient pushing over a shelf at Dongmen Metro Shopping Center.

But like the title of the video, the title of this story states that a rumor, not a suspected mental patient, is the cause of the panic:

Rumor causes panic at Laojie

Yes, a story about a rumor spinning out of control can’t get its own facts straight and causes more chaos, something that does qualify as “ironic” in every sense of the word if you’ve been waiting for a correct usage of the word.

As we reported yesterday, a 26 year-old Shaanxi woman surnamed Li has been arrested for her part in spreading rumors and inciting panic in the public. After some guy pushed down a shelf in a store (something something mental disease), Li made a post on Weibo that specifically described a knife attack happening in Dongmen by two men of an unclear ethnic origin and even posted bloody pictures of the scene (read the message in full here).

A person with mental disease named Huang but otherwise known as “Shelves McPushalot” is not the cause of the panic, otherwise he and his mental disease would be in jail; instead, he is the cause of the rumor.

The rumors are the cause of the panic.

[h/t Kotaku]

Photo: Sohu screenshot

The post Watch: Shenzhen Residents Run For Their Lives From Rumored Knife Attack appeared first on The Nanfang.

Hero Shan is shown in the middle, and the attacker depicted at left. The armed officials have not shown up yet.

When calamity and chaos strike, it is the heroes that step forward and distinguish themselves by their actions. It is in the nature of a hero to act because the one defining characteristic they all share is that a hero serves.

On the morning of May 6, a man began to indiscriminately attack passengers leaving the Guangzhou Railway Station with a long bladed knife, causing non life-threatening injuries to six people before being shot and detained by police. And it’s because of heroes like Shan that the situation didn’t get any worse.

READ: Suspect Acted Alone in Knife Attack at Guangzhou Railway Station

Mr Shan is a 42 year-old migrant all the way from Heilongjiang Province. After arriving in Guangzhou at 11am, he unexpectedly became caught up in the knifing incident as he was leaving the plaza.

Shan was very fortunate when the backpack he was wearing helped deflect some of the slashes made at him by the knife-wielding attacker, and as a result only suffered minor injuries.

Shan told his story to the Southern Metropolis Daily. “I picked up a wooden rod that had been left on the ground by other passengers to confront the attacker,” he said. “More people would have been stabbed if I hadn’t done that, because the attacker stabbed everyone he met like crazy.”

Shan also added, “When the attacker moved, I also moved to block him so that he couldn’t hurt others.”

READ: Eyewitness Accounts Depict Horrors of
Guangzhou Railway Station Attack

As reported by China Daily, Shan said he used the rod to knock away the suspect’s knife before police officers rushed in. This statement contradicts earlier published reports, and if true, signifies that the police had shot an unarmed man.

But that is but one half of the heroic coin that pays for the safety of our society. We also owe a debt of gratitude to the officials that we see in photographs getting the job done.

In the wake of the Guangzhou Railway Station knife attack, Chinese officials got personally involved with the beefing of security at train stations across the country. Reported as having made personal tours of inspection are Fu Zhenghua, vice-minister of the Ministry of Public Security, who visited Beijing Railway Station; vice-minister Liu Yanping, who visited several railway stations in Shanghai; and Huang Baowei, head of the Zhengzhou public security bureau, who made an inspection of rural areas of the city.

RELATED: Knife Attack at Shenzhen North Station Watched by
Crowd of Bystanders

It’s always great to have officials making sure that security is tight, but those wanting an extra layer of security may sleep better knowing that these officials are described as making these inspections while “armed“. You know that these guys have all got your back when they’re packing heat.

Meanwhile, the the identity of the sole suspect in this attack has still not yet been revealed to the public. As well, the SCMP confirms an early report that said the suspect loitered at the Guangzhou Railway Station for hours before making the attack as citing a security video that features the suspect in it.

UPDATE May 9, 2014: Our hero gets the recognition he deserves.

Yesterday, Shan Lianbo and Wang Fengwu were both recognized by the city for their heroic deeds in helping police confront the attacker that put six people in hospital. Both men were awarded a “Guangzhou Samaritan Certificate” as well as a RMB 5,000 cash reward.

Photo: Weibo (1)

The post Heroes of Guangzhou Knife Attack: Migrant with Rod, Officials with Guns [UPDATED] appeared first on The Nanfang.

The attack occurred Tuesday morning at around 11:30am. A police officer present at the scene shot and subdued one of the attackers. Other attackers are reported to have fled the scene.

Eyewitnesses at the scene say the attack happened after the K366 train from Kunming arrived at the station. At that time, a group of young people people wearing white shirts, pants and hats began to indiscriminately attack passerbys using knives with blades half a meter long.

The station is currently shut down, and train passengers occupying it have left the building.

We will update as details come in.

UPDATE 1, May 6, 2014 2:47pm: The People’s Daily Online reports two knife-wielding assailants started their attack in front of the post office in the plaza of the Guangzhou Railway Station. Attacked were four people just leaving the station, two men and two women, of whom one sustained a neck injury.

The entrances to the Guangzhou Railway Station are now open, which has resumed normal operations again.

Four of the victims have been taken to the Guangzhou Military District Hospital, and are in stable condition. Guangzhou Party Council Secretary Wan Qingliang and mayor Chen Jianhua have gone to the hospital to visit them.

The post Knife Attack at Guangzhou Train Station Injures Six People [UPDATED] appeared first on The Nanfang.