Seven dead in school stabbing attack

1. Seven dead in knife attack at Shaanxi school where killer ‘was bullied’

Seven middle school students were reportedly stabbed to death and 12 more were injured by a knife-wielding man in an attack outside a school in Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province, on April 27.

• The attack occurred on Friday at around 6:10 p.m. when students of the Mizhi No.3 Middle School were leaving the campus, according to a statement (in Chinese) released by Mizhi authorities.
• Photos circulating online showed students’ bodies lying on the streets covered in blood and local police officers arresting the attacker on the scene.
• Five of the dead were female and two male. The injured students, nine girls and three boys, have all been sent to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment. No information about the severity of their injuries has been released.
• The suspect, a 28-year-old man surnamed Zhao 赵 who resides in Mizhi County, was arrested. Police say he confessed during preliminary interrogation that the stabbing was a revenge attack: he had studied at the school and was bullied by his classmates.
• After the Mizhi County hospital issued an urgent call (in Chinese) for AB type blood donations, hundreds of people travelled (in Chinese) to Mizhi to offer assistance.

—Jiayun Feng

2. Xi to Modi: Let’s work together for the ‘revival of Eastern civilization’

General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “informal” summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi began in Wuhan on April 27. This is what’s in the news:

• “China and India are both countries with a splendid history and culture,” and they should “together work for the revival of Eastern civilization” (共同致力于东方文明复兴), Xi told Modi as the pair visited the Hubei Provincial Museum, according to Xinhua (in Chinese).
• Check out the Xinhua article for TV footage of an especially slouched — ahem, relaxed — Xi sitting together with Modi, followed by footage of the museum visit.
• The “Eastern civilization” line mirrored yesterday’s China Daily editorial, which modestly set expectations for the meeting: Summit may herald ‘Century of Asia.’
• “I hope such informal summits become a tradition between both the countries. I’ll be happy, if in 2019 we can have such an informal summit in India,” Modi said, per Reuters.
• “The two leaders have reached many important consensuses via these meetings,” said Xinhua, without going into specifics.
• International affairs commentator Ian Bremmer is not convinced, writing in TIME, “The reality is that China today has supplanted Pakistan as India’s chief rival in Asia — but neither sees great value in escalating tensions further. That starts with the meeting this week.”
• “We are not terming this a reset,” a senior Indian government official told India Today, in a cover story about current China-India relations. The official continued, “In digital terms, a reset means wiping out the past and rebooting the relations. Historical and legacy issues — what the Chinese call core concerns and we term sensitive zones — will remain. We’re not ready to alter our position on these issues.”
• Also, in Stratfor: India and China’s rapprochement extends only skin deep

Previously on The China Project: India and China aim to ‘properly settle disputes’ with a bilateral summit. Will it work?, and Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi plan quality time together in Wuhan.

—Lucas Niewenhuis

3. Highlights from this week’s news

These are the stories that caught our eye this week:

• Peking University is embroiled in a Me Too scandal after student Yue Xin 岳昕 accused school officials of silencing her activism about a two-decades-old sexual harassment case.
• Huawei, the leading Chinese telecom equipment and mobile handset manufacturer that American legislators love to hate, is the target of a Justice Department investigation on whether it violated Iran sanctions (the same crime that ZTE was punished for last week).
• Xi Jinping burnished his Marxist credentials by holding a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to consider the importance of the Communist Manifesto.
• Sexist ads for tech jobs and government posts were highlighted in a Human Rights Watch report, and China’s largest tech companies issued boilerplate apologies.
• Xi Jinping urged technological self-reliance, as China made strides in building its own smartphone, electric vehicle, and semiconductor industries.

• U.S. flies bombers over South China Sea

The U.S. military told CNN that “two bombers flew between two Chinese claimed features in the Spratly Islands, claims unrecognized by China’s neighbors and the U.S. government.” The flight was “part of the U.S. Air Force’s routine ‘Continuous Bomber Presence’ in the region.”

• South China Sea: What does the Philippines want from China?

The South China Morning Post reports that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesperson said Duterte “told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xhan Phuc on Friday he is not abandoning Manila’s 2016 arbitral award against China over features in the South China Sea.”

• Venezuela’s debts to China

“A grace period on Chinese loans to Venezuela has lapsed,” says Reuters, “potentially depriving the cash-strapped OPEC nation of billions of dollars in desperately needed oil revenue this year.”

• LinkedIn China requires real name verification and phone numbers

TechNode reports: “LinkedIn has begun to inform Chinese users that they need add their phone numbers for real-name registration. The professional networking platform says this is to meet local regulations.”

• Private equity: Blackstone and HNA

Stephen Schwarzman “and his Blackstone Group LP may be uniquely placed to unlock some of HNA’s real estate treasures,” according to Bloomberg.

• Chinese auto manufacturing: Geely  

Geely’s Lynk & Co. is building a sports utility vehicle factory “with digitally connected robots and a fresh workforce of 1,800 people” in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, reports Reuters.

• U.S.-China tech wars: AI

The South China Morning Post says that “the U.S. government may start scrutinizing informal partnerships between American and Chinese companies in the field of artificial intelligence, threatening practices that have long been considered commonplace for technology companies.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY

5 highlights of the historic meeting between North and South Korea

A long-awaited handshake over the Korean Military Demarcation Line became a reality on April 27. Here are five highlights of the historic meeting between North and South Korea.

ON SUPCHINA

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Chinese state media parrots Russian claim that ‘White Helmets staged chemical attack video’

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‘Are you coming to the orgy?’

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Controversial rapper PG One makes a low-key comeback. Weibo doesn’t buy it

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• Subscribe to the podcast via Overcast, iTunes, or Stitcher.

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This week on the Business Brief: Hainan’s new visa policy, Alipay’s launch of its service on buses, Doug Young on China’s biggest telecom equipment makers such as ZTE and their problems with the U.S., and more.

• Subscribe to the Business Brief on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher.

Video:

• A customer in Huai’an, Jiangsu Province, allegedly found a mouse tail inside a Popsicle. The incident is being investigated by the State Food and Drug Administration.
• Is Huawei in big trouble? Days after the U.S. imposed a seven-year ban on the sale of American technologies to ZTE, Huawei is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly violating Iran sanctions.
• A mosquito with a 4.4-inch wingspan was discovered in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
• Seventeen people were killed after two dragon boats capsized during a practice run in Guilin, Guangxi, on April 21. Fifty-seven people fell into the Taohuajiang River.

PHOTO FROM MICHAEL YAMASHITA

Photographers in the photo

A group of photographers at Jiayu Pass (嘉峪关 Jiāyù Guān), at the western end of the Great Wall, in Gansu Province. The pass was an important strategic outpost on the ancient Silk Road.

—Jia Guo