A group of eight knife-wielding terrorists attacked passengers in the
Kunming Railway Station in
Kunming,
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
, China, on 1 March 2014.
The attackers pulled out long-bladed knives and stabbed and slashed passengers at random. The assailants killed 31 civilians and injured more than 140 people.
Four assailants were shot to death by police on the spot and one injured perpetrator was captured. Police announced on 3 March that the six-man, two-woman group had been neutralized after the arrest of three remaining suspects.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack and no ties to any organization have been identified, in effect the group was a singular
terror cell
A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people (such as resistance fighters, sleeper agents, mobsters, or terrorists) such that such people can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization (such as ...
.
Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...
and the government of Kunming said that the attack had been linked to Sunni extremists which were a faction of
Xinjiang separatists.
Police said that they had confiscated a black, hand-painted
East Turkestan
East Turkestan ( ug, شەرقىي تۈركىستان, Sherqiy Türkistan, bold=no; zh, s=东突厥斯坦; also spelled East Turkistan), is a loosely-defined geographical and historical region in the western provinces of the People's Republic of ...
flag at the scene, which is associated with the Uyghur separatists from the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
.
Attack
At 21:20 on 1 March 2014, a group of individuals dressed in black clothes rushed into the square and ticket lobby of
Kunming railway station and started to attack people indiscriminately.
[ Initial reports indicated there were ten assailants armed with knives and cleavers.][
The assailants killed 31 people and injured 143 (including seven policemen). Two security guards employed by the station were among the dead. The wounded were treated at 11 hospitals in Kunming. Police initially attempted to subdue the attackers using tear-gas shells but were unable to do so, before shooting four suspects and arresting one. A wounded female suspect was detained at the scene and sent to a hospital.]
China News Service quoted a "Mr. Tan", who remembered seven to eight attackers indiscriminately slashing people regardless of age, even stabbing the wounded on the floor until they were dead. He also saw a police officer carrying a child of about five years of age, with slashed trousers and blood streaming down their legs.
Initial response
According to China Central Television, a four-man SWAT team was on site within ten minutes of the start of the knife attack. The sole member of the team with an automatic weapon shot five of the attackers in rapid succession, killing four of them, after two warning shots were fired.
After the incident, all trains originally scheduled to stop at Kunming Station were directed to stop elsewhere until 23:00 on 1 March when services gradually resumed. Personnel at the Changshui International Airport also held an emergency meeting and tightened security though they stated that they were operating normally. There were scattered news reports suggesting that similar attacks occurred in Dashuying () in the Jinma subdistrict of Kunming, but local police stated that reports of "several places suffering attacks" were only rumors.
The Red Cross Society of China
The Red Cross Society of China () is the national Red Cross Society in the People's Republic of China.
Origins and history before 1949
The Red Cross Society of China was founded as the Shanghai International Red Cross Committee on March 10, 19 ...
sent a team to Yunnan in the morning of 2 March to support the Yunnan Red Cross Society in assisting with rescue efforts and to provide counseling to the relatives of victims and shocked civilians.
On 2 March, armed police patrolled the area around Kunming Railway Station. In the early morning, locals put flowers on the square in front of the station to mourn the dead. At 13:00, the Kunming Police disclosed information on two suspects, one woman and one man, according to statements of witnesses.
In the aftermath of the attack, heavy police presence was noted in Dashuying, a low-income ghetto that houses many of Kunming's Uyghurs
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
. Kunming police interrogated members of the small local Uyghur community, questioning them at gunpoint.
Yunnan's Communist Party Secretary Qin Guangrong said on 4 March that he had targeted sufficient resources to help the victims, who would not have to bear medical costs. Emergency services had processed the injured, and compensation arrangements were being discussed.[ Qin said that the absence of clear threat up to that point meant terrorism prevention had not been a high priority in Yunnan. He admitted to inadequacies in resources, policing and intelligence gathering.][
]
Attackers
On 3 March the Ministry of Public Security announced that police had arrested three suspects and said that an eight-person terrorist group was responsible for the attack, the leader of which was named Abdurehim Kurban.; , group="note" Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
, a broadcaster overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an agency of the United States government, claimed that there had been scant information from official sources as to the identities, or even evidence that the attackers were Uyghurs.["Train Station Attackers Were Trying to Leave China for Jihad: Official"](_blank)
. Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
(5 March 2014)
Qin Guangrong said that the captured wounded suspect had confessed to the crime. He asserted the group started off in Yunnan and originally planned to participate in " jihad" abroad. They allegedly tried unsuccessfully to leave the country from south Yunnan, and also from Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
. Unable to do so, they returned to Yunnan, and carried out the attack.[ Sources from Radio Free Asia, another broadcaster that is under the supervision of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, seem to confirm that they were Uyghurs, saying the gang most likely originated from a township in Hotan, Xinjiang, where it was claimed that police had violently suppressed a demonstration against the closure of a mosque and the arrest of its imam in June 2013 that ended in 15 dead and 50 injured.]["China Train Station Attackers May Have Acted 'in Desperation'"](_blank)
Radio Free Asia (3 March 2014) The sources claimed that after witnessing the capture of fellow Uyghurs attempting to flee China into Laos, the group became desperate because of their lack of identity papers along with being on the run from police.[
The surviving wounded suspect, a pregnant woman, Patigul Tohti, and three men, Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad, who were accused of masterminding the attack and had been arrested while attempting to flee across the border two days before the attack, were tried for and convicted of murder and organizing and leading a terrorist organization in the Kunming City Intermediate People's Court. Tohti was sentenced to life in prison, while Ehet, Tohtunyaz, and Muhammad received death sentences, and were executed in March 2015.
]
Reactions
Domestic
After the terrorist attack, Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
(CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...
and Premier Li Keqiang assigned Meng Jianzhu, Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center (disambiguation), center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa ...
, to oversee the investigation. There was some coverage in the regional press; local ''Kunming Times'' carried the story on its front page. But the '' South China Morning Post'' (SCMP) remarked that the China Central Television evening news programme as well as other national media did not report the attack. Coverage was also scant in the ''Southern Metropolis Daily
Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) is a for-profit tabloid newspaper located in Guangzhou city, China,Wang, Xiaotong. 2012. "The Comparison Between Newspapers In Hong Kong And Mainland And Its Enlightenment – A Case Study On Apple Daily And Sout ...
'' in Guangzhou and the ''Yangtse Evening Post
The ''Yangtse Evening Post'' or ''Yangtze Evening Post'' (), also known as ''Yangtse Evening News'' or ''Yangtze Evening News'', is a Nanjing-based Chinese language state newspaper published in China. It is one of world's most circulated newspap ...
''.[Chen, Andrea (2 March 2014)]
"While world reels in shock at Kunming attack, news is notably absent from china's front pages"
. ''South China Morning Post''.[
As a result, it became a heavily discussed topic on Chinese social media, where responses ranged from anger and shock to restraint. Whilst '']China Daily
''China Daily'' () is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Overview
''China Daily'' has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. T ...
'' noted the appeals by netizens to "stop circulating bloody pictures", microblogged and social media-hosted images of the carnage were swiftly deleted by censors. Several Sina Weibo users also referred to the incident as our "9-11"; and the CCP-owned tabloid ''Global Times
The ''Global Times'' () is a daily tabloid newspaper under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the '' People's Daily'', commenting on international issues from a Chinese ultra-nationalistic perspective. The pub ...
'' echoed the sentiment with a headline titled, "Nothing justified civilian slaughter in China's '9-11'".[Tiezzi, Shannon (4 March 2014)]
"Is the Kunming Knife Attack China’s 9-11?"
. ''The Diplomat''. Jin Canrong of Renmin University suggested the way forward would be to de-emphasise Uyghur ethnicity and try to instill a greater sense of "Chineseness", stressing equal obligations and rights as Chinese citizens, while Barry Sautman
Barry Victor Sautman (born July 11, 1949) is a professor emeritus with the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He holds both Canadian and American nationalities and he speaks both English and Cantonese ...
, a China expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, suggested widening the preferential policies and granting Xinjiang Uyghurs greater autonomy.
The ''SCMP'' suggested the attack had taken place at the most politically sensitive time of year, which was on the eve of the second session of the . Lü Xinhua, spokesman for the conference, denounced the attack as a serious violent terrorist attack planned and organized by terrorist elements from Xinjiang. This assertion has been echoed by officials in Kunming.
A ''Legal Daily'' video clip that broadcast on CCTV News
CGTN (formerly known as CCTV-9 and CCTV News) is a state-run English-language news channel based in Beijing, China. It is one of six channels provided by China Global Television Network, owned by the Chinese state broadcaster China Central T ...
on 3 March featured an interview with the SWAT marksman who was responsible for shooting five of the attackers and applauded his heroism. The officer said that as the assailants rushed towards him ignoring warning shots fired, he shot the five in about 15 seconds "without thinking". Sautman said that the government may have wanted to "show that there was also successful resistance to terrorists and to put a human face on that resistance."
Western media coverage
Following the event, many major Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
media outlets covered the event with the quotation marks
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
around the word "terrorism," some in the article's headline, some in the body, and some in both.[People's Daily Online, 4 March 201]
"Western media coverage of Kunming's terror attack shows sheer mendacity and heartlessness"
, 4 March 2014.[Dawn, Yiqin Fu, 5 March 201]
"Chinese are angry at western media’s portrayal of the Kunming attack"
, 5 March 2014. China accused Western commentators, with their focus on Uyghur rights, of hypocrisy and double standards on terrorism.[BBC News, Kunming, John Sudworth, 3 March 201]
"Shock and anger after Kunming brutality"
, 3 March 2014. Chinese citizens followed that with criticism against the United States government for refusing to identify the rampage as a terrorist attack, with some comparing it against the Chinese response to the Boston Marathon bombing
The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...
.
The '' People's Daily,'' the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, accused Western media of ambivalence and failing to state unequivocally that the attack was an act of terrorism, saying, "These media are always the loudest when it comes to anti-terrorism, but in the Kunming train station terrorist violence they lost their voice and spoke confusedly, making people angry," and named American news outlets CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, The Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newsp ...
, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' as examples.[
CNN removed the quotation marks on 2 March, one day after the event, describing it as "deadly Kunming terror attacks".
]
International
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
separately condemned the attack. Many countries condemned the attack, and expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences. Dilxat Rexit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups that claims to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's ...
, deplored the attacks, and urged the Chinese government to "ease systematic repression". ''The Diplomat
''The Diplomat'' is an international online news magazine covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region. It is based in Washington, D.C.
It was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jone ...
'' pointed to use of the comparison to 9–11 as referring not so much to the scale of the attack but the effect that this would have on the nation's psyche, saying "there are hints that it may have a similar effect on the way China conceptualizes and deals with terrorism".[ An academic at the National University of Singapore warned of a very significant impact of the incident on the Chinese public as the attack took place in the heart of China, and not at the periphery, making the people more inclined to support the adoption of a more hard-line approach towards Xinjiang or Uyghurs, thus accelerating the cycle of repression and violence.][
AFP (2 March 2014)]
" Crackdown after China killings may backfire, say experts"
. ''Times of Oman''.
[Saint-Paul, Patrick (3 March 2014)]
"Pékin sous le choc du «11 Septembre chinois»"
. ''Le Figaro''
Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer ( ug, رابىيە قادىر, translit=Rabiye Qadir; born 15 November 1946) is an ethnic Uyghur businesswoman and political activist. Born in Altay City, Xinjiang, Kadeer became a millionaire in the 1980s through her real estate ...
, President of the World Uyghur Congress, called on the Chinese government to rationally handle the attacks and "not to demonize Uighur people as enemies of the state". The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang
Qin Gang (; born 19 March 1966) is a Chinese diplomat and politician who has been serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2022, making him China's second highest ranked diplomat after CCP Politburo member Wang Yi. He previously served as V ...
responded by condemning the WUC as "an anti-China separatist organization", saying that the WUC "cannot represent Uyghur people" and that Kadeer "showed her ulterior political motive by linking the terrorist incidents at Kunming together with a particular ethnic group".
''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' mentioned that this was the first time Uyghurs had been blamed for carrying out an attack of such magnitude outside of Xinjiang.[ Adjunct professor of Sinology at the ]Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...
Willy Lam said that official figures indicate violent conflicts appear to be on the increase. He suggested the absence of a mechanism for airing grievances and dialogue between the aggrieved and the authorities is contributing to the increase in those resorting to violence.[Keating, Fiona (2 March 2014)]
"Kunming Massacre: Who are Xinjiang Separatists China Blames for Attack?"
IDEO
IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, enviro ...
''International Business Times''. The Analects column of ''The Economist'' asserted that although the alleged group leader's name suggests he may be an Uyghur, this would be difficult to verify in a country where media are state-controlled and officials tightly control information flows. It responded to Chinese commentators who criticised outsiders for not immediately accepting official Chinese assertion of an act of politically motivated terrorism by Xinjiang separatists by saying: "But China, which prefers to play down the role of its policies in Xinjiang in generating discontent, has long sought to discredit its Uygur critics by linking them to terrorism". ''The Economist'' also mentioned "Chinese oppression in Xinjiang" that "hit at the heart of Uighur identity" as a factor in the escalating violence, including: "students are banned from fasting during Ramadan, religious teaching for children is restricted, and Uighur-language education is limited". Yet according to ''Dawn'', China only discourages fasting for Uygur Muslims and encourages people to eat properly for study and work but authorities "don't force anyone to eat during Ramadan". Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said there had been intelligence failure. He estimated that "in the last 12 months there have been over 200 attacks n Xinjiang maybe even more. It is getting worse".[Jacobs, Andrew; Buckley, Chris (2 March 2014)]
"China Blames Xinjiang Separatists for Stabbing Rampage at Train Station"
. ''The New York Times''
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunming attack
Xinjiang conflict
Attacks in China in 2014
Events in Yunnan
Mass murder in 2014
Mass stabbings in China
Terrorist incidents in China in 2014
Terrorist incidents in China
Terrorist incidents involving knife attacks
Stabbing attacks in 2014
Deaths by stabbing in China
Attacks on railway stations
Turkistan Islamic Party
March 2014 events in China
Knife attacks
Massacres in China
Terrorist incidents on railway systems in Asia
2014 murders in China