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Two U.S. tourists, relatives of the coach of the U.S. men’s Olympic volleyball team, and their Chinese guide were attacked Aug. 9 by a knife-wielding man at the Drum Tower, a tourist location in Beijing. One of the tourists was killed. The assailant, whom police identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old from Hangzhou, just south of Shanghai, jumped to his death from the Drum Tower after the attack.
Chinese authorities are portraying the attack as an act of random violence, noting that the victims had no distinguishing clothing or other items identifying them as Americans or as relatives of a U.S. Olympic coach. The name of the attacker and his residency also suggest he is a member of China’s dominant ethnic group, the Han, rather than an ethnic minority such as Uighur or Tibetan — two groups Beijing has warned will try to disrupt or even attack the Olympics.
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