The incident passed in moments: Two American instructors from a college in Iowa were each stabbed in the back on June 10 in northeast China. Two of their colleagues were then slashed on their left arms as they turned to face the assailant. A Chinese national who tried to intervene was knifed in the abdomen.

       Nearly two months later, the attack in Jilin City is becoming the latest in a series of diplomatic frictions between the United States and China. R. Nicholas Burns, the United States ambassador to China, criticized Beijing’s limited divulgence of specifics about the episode and said that he was actively pressing for more disclosure.

       Chinese government “authorities have not provided additional details on the motives of the assailant,” he said in a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday. “We remain dissatisfied about the lack of transparency and have made our concerns abundantly clear to the” government in Beijing.

       In response, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly defended how the stabbings were handled. A statement to The Times on Wednesday, repeating what the Jilin police said shortly after the stabbings, said that the episode began when the assailant, 55, collided on a crowded path with one of the instructors. The statement, released by the ministry’s office of the spokesperson, added that the assailant had been having trouble walking before the collision, but did not elaborate.

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       “This case was an isolated incident caused by a physical collision and quarrel between the two parties,” the statement said. “It was not targeted at a specific country or person, nor against U.S. personnel in China. Such matters could happen in any country.”

       In an interview on Thursday, another U.S. government official, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, expressed further dissatisfaction with China’s stance.

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