The woman killed in a brazen knife attack in Sanlitun on August 13 was laid to rest in an eastern Beijing suburb funeral home yesterday. Friends and family of a Shandong woman now identified as Isabella, who was 28, mourned her passing. .

Last Thursday, Isabella and her French husband were walking by Tai Koo Mall in Beijing’s upscale Sanlitun District when they were attacked by a man armed with a sword.  A 25 year-old man named Gao from Tonghua, Jilin Province was arrested at the scene, where he stood holding his sword.

News on the attack in the Chinese media has been vague. For example, the relationship between Isabella and her husband was not made clear in reports a day after the attack. However, at the same time, Beijing police were adamant that the attacks occurred for “no reason” because the attacker had no motive.

However, for the first time, Chinese media is beginning to publish details of the attack that claim they may have been provoked by nationalist tendencies. As the People’s Daily Online reported, a friend of the French husband recalls that the attacker had asked if the man was an American citizen.

Social media had pointed out this theory before on Twitter. Over on Weibo, netizens have also considered that the August 13 attack was sparked by anti-American sentiment, while others don’t think so, saying the attack was by a “loser” who is angry at the world.

Here are some of their comments posted on the Global Times, a nationalist newspaper:

百羊凶:
Husband and wife were out for a walk on the street when the killer came up to them, asking the man if he is an American. Answering that he is from France, he began to lead his wife away from the scene. The murderer fatally stabbed the wife, and then injured the husband. Clearly, the two sides did not know each other. The killer hates foreigners, has contempt for women, thinks women are some kind of resource, and that her marrying a foreigner is disrespecting him. Instead of looking within himself to find the reason why he’s not able to marry a woman, he blames women for his problems. What a loser, and a cancer to society.

 

默默想养只猫：
Male chauvinists objectify women by treating them like a resource to exploit. Why is it that a Chinese man who marries a foreign woman is praised, but a Chinese woman who marries a foreign man is criticized? What kind of rationale is this?

无畏高尔察克:
Extremists are the shame of all the people.

M16dwg：
Global Times newspaper is the grand nationalist headquarters of hating the USA and the West.

塞上啸：
Is the Global Times thinking about performing a follow-up interview? Where does the murderer, who hates all Americans, normally get his information? By what propaganda is he influenced by?

查理布朗的小狗：
Isn’t the killer a member of your Global Times target audience?

陌上花開可歸矣萧萧：
I don’t understand: just what does this story have to do with nationalism? What does this chauvinist man and Global Times have to do with each other? What does he have to do with national educational policies?

塔总的柠檬茶：
I’m speechless at reading the comments. What the frig does this have to do with nationalism? If you really love your country, then you’ll work hard, make contributions, or become a soldier. Or, to say something extreme, if you have what it takes, you’ll go over to the USA and kill an American. But what does it prove to kill a woman that belongs to your own country? This is simply a chauvinist man who isn’t able to marry a woman, a coward of a bully. This is just misogyny, that’s all. 

Magnetj：
Those people who can watch their countrymen get murdered and then just write them off for having married a foreigner should get themselves checked into a mental hospital!

Gallifrey星的肉包被大圣苏飞：
Some people who have written some of these comments are just despicable.

moirae007：
This has nothing to do with nationalism. This is a loser trying to vent his frustration.

The post Chinese Debate Nationalist Motive as Sanlitun Attack Victim Laid to Rest 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.