WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – China is promising to work with the U.S. to investigate a stabbing that sent four U.S. college instructors in China to the hospital.
China’s foreign minister is not reporting a motive and calls the incident “isolated.”
All four instructors were from Cornell College in Iowa, three of them were American. All are in stable condition.
Chinese police say the man bumped into a foreigner at a public park early Monday morning when he began stabbing the victims, including one Chinese national who tried to intervene.
On Twitter, the U.S. ambassador to China sad he was “angered and deeply troubled” by the stabbing. He says he visited the victims in the hospital.
A spokesperson from the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said,” The U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang has confirmed to Senator Grassley that it’s working to advocate for the attack victims, with the Consul General planning a personal meeting with them at the hospital. Senator Grassley stands ready to assist.”
Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) says at least one of the American victims is expected to return to the U.S. in the next 24 hours and says so far Beijing is being “very cooperative.”
“What I don’t want people to do is jump to a conclusion that there was something more than a random unprovoked attacked, until we have that information this is what we have,” says Miller-Meeks.