A heroic death in Suzhou

Hi, folks. This is not a typical weekly review, as I have exhausted my writing energy of the week for the article on China’s first major policy response to the venture capital crisis, published in Baiguan this Thursday. I said before that I usually only have a quota for 1 big article per week, so please bear with me if you find this one too short.

But I think I should still say a thing or two about the stabbing incident in Suzhou. According to SCMP:

A Chinese woman who was seriously wounded while trying to stop a knife attack on a Japanese school bus in the Chinese city of Suzhou has died.

Suzhou police said on their website on Thursday that they would give the title of “righteous and courageous role model” to the woman.

The announcement confirmed that Hu Youping, 54, was the Chinese victim of an attack on a Japanese school bus on Monday afternoon. A later report by the state news agency Xinhua said Hu died on Wednesday.

Ever since the Monday attack, China’s online discourse has been dominated by fierce controversy and debates, which culminated with Ms. Hu’s eventual death.

To be honest, if it’s just up to me, I wouldn’t think this event has anything to debate about. It’s an attack on innocent people, including children. Plain and simple.

But anything that has to do with Japan is inherently sensitive in China. If it’s only an attack on Chinese citizens, it would just be a simple piece of local news. But as soon as it involves foreigners, like the Jilin stabbing of American instructors from Cornell earlier this month, it will instantly become sensitive. And if it involves Japanese people, oh boy, you are destined to see a pile of ugly mess here, the same kind of ugly mess that spews conspiracy theories and xenophobic hate speech that’s increasingly common in every part of the world now.

Overall, I applaud our government’s treatment of this tragic event. When Ms. Hu died, the government wasted no time to praise her for who she is: a commoner who is also a real hero. Proclaiming Ms. Hu as a hero implies an obvious statement that the aggressor is no hero. But a “hero statement” is a way more powerful statement than jail time or even the death penalty for the perpetrator.

They are also very careful not to dwell too much on the fact that the attack was on a Japanese school bus and that Hu died from saving a Japanese mother and son. I think that’s shrewd. Highlighting the nationality difference not only may practically incite even more tension, but is just morally wrong. This event shouldn’t be about Japan and China. This is about innocent people being attacked by lone-wolf terrorism, and brave people trying to help.

More than that, the state media is also quite steadfast against hate speech, according to People’s Daily:

The stabbing incident was an extremely rare and isolated case and is not representative. We also do not accept the behaviour of individuals who stir up ‘xenophobia’ and make hate speech

According to SCMP:

After Monday’s attack, some ultranationalist and anti-Japanese comments appeared on Weibo. The platform released an announcement on Wednesday night saying it had suspended 36 accounts for such comments.

I believe by now you have been quite familiar with my “duo-China model”, a vocal minority of “Liberalist China” and a relatively silent majority of the “Traditionalist China”. The government in China plays this “Grand Balancer” role to ensure peace and cohesion between the two “camps”, while economic growth and common prosperity may, in the end, upend the imbalance between the two.

A good “balancing act” involves not pushing too hard against either camp. But it also involves drawing a clear red line when things go out of control. Killing innocent people is such a line, and despite the tragic fact that a real human life has been sacrificed along the way, I am relieved that they have drawn this line fast and firmly, and have thus made the only right choice in this case.

The message sent to all corners of our society is unambiguous. You may want to dislike Japan, you may even want to do some indecent stupid acts and we can’t stop you. But violence is a big no-no.

I am also glad to see that in both the Suzhou and Jilin stabbings, it’s common to see brave Chinese people stepping up to protect the innocents. In the Jilin incident, a brave Chinese man, whose name has never been disclosed, got himself injured trying to fight the aggressor, while Ms. Hu in Suzhou became the first death victim from these two unrelated events.

That’s a thing we need to remember about China (apart from the fact that it’s still one of the safest places on earth with a homicide rate of less than 1/10 of the US level) which is how modern Chinese people, who might look meek to you, can be very brave, very compassionate and very hotblooded热血 in the face of aggression.

Finally, for you, my dear subscribers, let me reprint the same thing I said on X after the Jilin stabbing:

I can't comment too much on this from a macro perspective. I can only say this much, as a fellow human being:

My dear friends, if you walk on the streets of China with me acting as your tour guide, and things like this happen (they rarely do), I will be there defending you from attacks the best way I can, with rocks and sticks if possible, with bare hands and my elementary Muay Thai skills if necessary.

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Talking about acting as your tour companion, I also had two interesting conversations this week. One is a dinner gathering with Mr. Bertrand Arnaud as the main guest, a serial entrepreneur from France, and a top X influencer famous for sharp pro-China tweets. The only thing I can reveal about that dinner is that the real Monsieur Arnaud looks far more low-profile and soft-spoken than his online persona suggests.

The other conversation is at the German Embassy in Beijing, where me and my friend Johnny Zou at

MJFinance

spoke at a breakfast meeting about recent developments in China’s venture capital industry, in front of a table of economic counselors from several European countries and central bankers of some major Indo-Pacific economies. My main thesis during that talk was covered in this article.

This is my first time visiting ANY embassy, so it has been quite a thrilling experience. I was not allowed to bring electronics in, so sadly I can share no pictures of this great event. I am not a diplomat, but it’s quite rewarding that I can add value to cross-border understanding in my humble capacity.