New | Chinese netizens slam US for refusing to call Kunming attack a ‘terrorist act’
Chinese internet users on Monday accused the United States of double standards after Washington condemned a deadly knife attack in southwest China but refrained from calling it a terrorist incident.
The US embassy in China said on social media that it condemned the “terrible and senseless act of violence in Kunming” and expressed condolences to those affected in what it said was a tragedy.
The attack on Saturday night saw masked assailants stab civilians at a train station, killing 29 and wounding more than 130.
If you say that the Kunming attack is a ‘terrible and senseless act of violence’, then the 9/11 attack can be called a ‘regrettable traffic incident
China has blamed separatists from the restive region of Xinjiang for what it described as an act of terror, with state media dubbing the incident “China’s 9/11”.
But thousands of Chinese internet users slammed the US for refusing to follow China in defining the attack as terrorism, comparing the knife attack to last year’s bombing of the Boston Marathon (which killed three and left 264 injured) as well as 9/11 (which killed nearly 3,000 people).
“Merely ‘terrible and senseless’? Only ‘violence’? Would Americans say the same thing about similar attacks on their own territory?” Ma Xiaolin, a website administrator, asked on Sina Weibo.
“If you say that the Kunming attack is a ‘terrible and senseless act of violence’, then the 9/11 attack can be called a ‘regrettable traffic incident’,” posted Cao Fan.
In typical mocking response, another user wrote: “I express my condolences for the setting off of fireworks and burning incident at the Boston Marathon.”