Stunned China Looks Inward After School Attacks

[DavidRoss]

Stunned China Looks Inward After School Attacks
Reuters


A guard at a school’s entrance in Jiangsu Province on Friday, the day a man attacked students in Shandong Province.

By MICHAEL WINES
Published: April 30, 2010
BEIJING — In the wake of a fourth horrific attack on Chinese schoolchildren — this time by a crazed man who on Friday beat five toddlers with a hammer, then set himself on fire with two other children in his arms — this shocked and bruised nation was of two distinctly different minds.

On the Internet and in newspapers, people agonized over whether their tightly regimented society, a boiling caldron of change with no pressure valve to let off steam, was blowing its lid.

In the halls of government, however, the emphasis was on preventing the steam from escaping at all.

After the first attack, in which a man stabbed and killed eight children outside an elementary school in Fujian Province on March 23, the Internet and government media bubbled with outrage, and the state-run Xinhua news service issued a lengthy study of the loner who committed the crime.

But on Friday, after three consecutive days of spontaneous and inexplicable assaults on children as young as 3, the media went silent. News of the latest attack, at the Shangzhuang Primary School in Shandong Province, vanished from the headlines on major Internet portals, replaced by an announcement that the government had assembled a team of 22 experts to help the education system set things right.

The rest of the story is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/world ... ?th&emc=th

[Barry]

What a horrid trend. Thanks for posting, David.

[Chalkperson]

What a horrid trend. Thanks for posting, David.

I agree, there is something about the use of knives instead of guns that makes them almost more menacing, just look at the number of knife attacks in the UK...

[jbuck919]

What a horrid trend. Thanks for posting, David.

I agree, there is something about the use of knives instead of guns that makes them almost more menacing, just look at the number of knife attacks in the UK...

If Corlyss were here she would use that as an argument against gun control.

[Chalkperson]

What a horrid trend. Thanks for posting, David.

I agree, there is something about the use of knives instead of guns that makes them almost more menacing, just look at the number of knife attacks in the UK...

If Corlyss were here she would use that as an argument against gun control.

If Corlyss were here I would not have replied...