On the left, a Chinese police officer kneels before a kidnapper in SW China’s Yunnan Province pleading to swap places with the kidnapped student. On the right, a US police officer kneels on George Floyd's back/neck, eventually leading to his death.

 
Two pictures of policemen on their knees went viral on Chinese social media platforms, as one of them shows a Chinese policeman kneeling down in front of a knife-wielding gangster, requesting to swap places with a middle school student he had taken hostage, while a white American police officer puts his knees on George Floyd’s neck, leading to the latter’s death. 

The Chinese policeman got on his knees in an incident in Kunming, Southwest China’s Yunnan Province. He was reported to have kneeled down to request that he take the place of a 13-year-old local middle student who was taken hostage by the attacker, a 57-year-old man surnamed Wang, on Friday.

Chinese netizens had thought that the man, who was wearing plain clothes, was the student’s father, until the student’s cousin revealed on China’s Sina Weibo on Sunday that he was actually a local policeman. 

In his attempt to persuade the suspect, the Kunming police officer, whose name was not revealed, even took off his clothes to show the suspect that he was unarmed, according to the cousin. 

The picture of the Chinese policeman on his knees reminded Chinese netizens of the scene of a white police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, leading to his death. 

The hashtag “kneeling police” has been viewed more than 800 million times as of Sunday, with many netizens commenting that “they are both policemen, and their actions are both about life, but the difference is one aimed to save a life while the other took a life.”  

"Only Chinese police put people before their title," one Weibo user commented, mentioning that in China, the full name of police force is Chinese people’s police. 

"The same pose, the difference is it’s life or death under it," said another. 

Wang stabbed seven people and took a hostage at the gate of a middle school in Kunming at about 5 pm Friday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Wang’s victims were rushed to hospital. One of them died after treatment was unsuccessful.

After a nearly two-hour standoff, police killed Wang at around 6:40 pm and rescued the hostage, who suffered injuries. 

The kneeling policeman is not the only person hailed as a hero in the incident. 

A female local journalist also touched Chinese netizens when she volunteered to negotiate with the suspect after he demanded to talk for 10 minutes with a female reporter. 

According to the cousin of the student who was taken hostage, the student stabbed to death by Wang had warned others to run before he died.  

"They are all heroes," the cousin said. 

Global Times