A high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official at a top Chinese university in Shanghai died after being attacked by a teacher colleague, according to media reports.
The Shanghai police issued a brief notice that said there was a deadly knife attack at a university on Handan Road, Yangpu district, Shanghai city, on June 7, 2:52 p.m. local time. According to the notice, the suspect was a 39-year-old male teacher at the school with the surname Jiang, and the victim, a colleague of Jiang, was identified as a 49-year-old male with the surname Wang.
The notice vaguely claimed that the suspect admitted the killing was due to his hatred of the victim over employment concerns.
The police notice didn’t specifically disclose the name of the university, nor provide the title of the victim or specific motivations for the alleged fatal attack.
A map search and media reports suggest the crime scene was at Fudan University, one of China’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, and the only one that would correlate to the stated location.
A prominent theory circulating online over possible motivations for the murder focused on how Jiang, the alleged killer, was dismissed from his teaching post due to failure to meet the performance requirements set out in a six-year deal signed between him and the School.
It is reported that Jiang’s current title is a research fellow, and he could have been promoted to associate professor if he had passed his job performance assessment.
However, a video uploaded online shows the alleged attacker unmistakably admitting—in the presence of police officers at the scene—that he had been framed and mistreated for a long time by his employer. He also said he carried out the attack by himself.
The official site of the School of Mathematical Sciences currently says it is unreachable for visitors, showing “Our website is under maintenance.”
Recent Vicious Incidents Seem Frequent
China has seen around a dozen such vicious incidents since late May this year, according to Chinese state media outlets.On June 5, a mass stabbing spree occurred on a commercial strip in Yingjiang district, Anqing city, eastern China’s Anhui province. A 25-year-old male with the surname Wu killed at random six people and injured another 14 people, one of whom is critically ill in hospital.
On June 3, a 42-year-old male wielded a knife and heavily wounded two residents in a residential community in Liuzhou city, in the southern region of China’s Guangxi. They died after an unsuccessful hospital treatment. Preliminary findings show the attacker had relationship issues, according to reports.
On May 29, a 41-year-old man ran over his ex-wife with his car on a street in Nanjing city, Jiangsu province, allegedly due to relationship issues. He fled the scene, after which he injured seven others with a knife at random.
On May 22, a 31-year-old male with the surname Liu drove a black car toward pedestrians at an intersection near a park in Dalian city, Liaoning province in China’s northeast. The crash left four dead and three injured. The attacker reportedly failed in an investment before committing the homicide.
