Rao Jianfeng once said, “Standing at a high place is not to be seen by others, but to see further for oneself.” May this tragic incident of a Chinese civilian mountaineer being attacked and killed also enable more people to “see further,” to witness the inhuman nature of terrorism, and to perceive humanity and universal emotions that transcend borders, identities, languages, and more.
The mountains are still there, but they are gone. Yang Chunfeng and Rao Jianfeng, two of China’s finest civilian mountaineers, along with Chinese-American Chen Honglu, were shot and killed by Taliban militants in Pakistan at 00:30 on June 23. The news of their deaths instantly spread grief across the internet.
Among the victims, Rao Jianfeng was an outstanding civilian mountaineer from Shenzhen. Prior to this, he had climbed ten peaks over 8,000 meters, a record that ranked among the top nationally. He had agreed to serve as an ambassador for the Jing Bao newspaper and was preparing to participate in the “Jing Bao Celebrity Speech Week” in August this year to share his insights on outdoor adventure with readers. But all of this was mercilessly taken away by the bloodthirsty attackers. He did not fall on the path to the summit, but under the gun of terrorism, which made people realize as never before just how close terrorism truly is to us.
This is a typical terrorist attack. Reports indicate that the attack was carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, with approximately 10–12 militants involved. The attackers stole money and passports from foreigners, shot them, and then fled the scene. A spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban told AFP that the motive was “to avenge the killing of their second-in-command by a U.S. drone strike in May.”
Several Chinese mountaineers, including Rao Jianfeng, were thus cruelly caught up in the distant event of “U.S. drone strikes killing Taliban leaders.” Nothing can express our sorrow for the loss of life, nor our utter condemnation of such inhuman evil. Not long ago, two bomb explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in the United States also claimed the life of a Chinese citizen, which the FBI classified as a terrorist act. One wonders if the increasing amount of Chinese blood spilled will lead more people to accept and confront this reality: terrorism knows no borders—it is the enemy of all mankind.
Terrorism is neither ordinary criminal activity nor conventional warfare. It is an extreme form of asymmetric violence where “the weak take on the strong.” Academically, there are various definitions of terrorism, but there is no doubt that the indiscriminate killing of innocents is one of its fundamental characteristics. This is precisely what makes it so terrifying— theoretically, anyone, anywhere, could become a victim of a terrorist attack. For example, who could have imagined that even mountaineering, an activity so far removed from the hustle and bustle of daily life, could not escape its grasp?
But an unavoidable reality is that for a long time, some people have habitually defended terrorism. A prime example is the world-shocking “9/11” terrorist attacks, which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 innocent people, yet some actually cheered them on. This is an affront to the entire civilized world. It is impossible to understand how ignorant and cold-blooded a person must be to view terrorists as heroes. Even more incomprehensible is that certain so-called experts have publicly made equivocal statements in defense of terrorist acts. For instance, when a series of terrorist bombings occurred in Jordan’s capital some years ago, a domestic expert claimed on a TV program that “those people were just trying to get the world’s attention in this way...” In their eyes, human lives were no longer warm, flesh-and-blood beings, but abstract symbols laden with various ideologies and assigned different meanings.
If terrorism is the highest form of evil, then the lack of even basic compassion for life—and the inability to understand every individual “person” as a human being in and of themselves—is the greatest distance some people have from modern civilization. It is no surprise, then, that incidents of individuals seeking revenge on society by targeting innocent people—this so-called “lone-wolf terrorism”—have, in the eyes of some, blurred the line between good and evil. No one has the right to arbitrarily abduct or take the lives of others, no matter how noble or tragic the justification may seem. This basic truth should not have to be awakened time and again through the cost of lives.
May the soul of Shenzhen mountaineer Rao Jianfeng rest in peace. Rao Jianfeng once said, “Standing at a high place is not to be seen by others, but to see further for oneself.” May this tragic incident of a Chinese civilian mountaineer being attacked and killed also enable more people to “see further,” to witness the inhuman nature of terrorism, to perceive humanity and universal emotions that transcend borders, identities, languages, and more, and to bring about a return to rationality.