Pair Arrested in Death of American on Chinese Train

Railway police said today they arrested two Chinese men in the fatal stabbing of an American aboard a train in northern Henan province.

It was the first reported killing of a U.S. citizen in China since the 1949 Communist takeover. The victim, a Chinese-American whose name was given as Qie Jihua, was stabbed to death about 3 a.m. Sunday on a train from Beijing to Canton, said a spokesman at the Zhengzhou Station Police Office.

The body of Qie, 61, was discovered after the train pulled into the station at Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province 425 miles south of Beijing, the spokesman said.

A station worker arrested one of the suspects when he jumped from a train window as it entered the station. The man confessed to the stabbing and identified his accomplice, who was arrested on the train, the spokesman said.