It's time US set its own house in order

The disappearance of Zhang Yingying, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on June 9 has shocked many in China and the United States. As people watch closely the court trial of suspect Brendt Christensen, a serious question raised again is: How safe are US cities?

This question has become especially important for Chinese, as an increasing number of them travel to the US as tourists or send their children to US colleges to study. According to the Institute of International Education, more than 328,000 Chinese students were enrolled in US colleges and universities for the 2015-16 academic year, accounting for nearly a third of the total foreign students in the US. The figure, however, does not include a growing number of Chinese children enrolled in K-12 education schools. Besides, the number of Chinese tourists to the US hit 3 million in 2016, and the figure has been growing fast since the US loosened its visa policy in 2014.

Many Chinese know crime rates in US cities are high. Their perception has been largely shaped by Hollywood crime movies, news reports of the huge prison population and frequent mass shootings in the US. In recent years, that perception has been further fed by cases of Chinese students falling victims to violent crimes.