Terrorism-Related Attacks in East Asia from 1970 through 2020

AIM: This study aims to analyze and describe terrorism-related attacks in East Asia from 1970 through 2020. BACKGROUND: East Asia consists of South Korea, North Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Macao. According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2022, the impact of terrorism in East Asia is very low. However, the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022 demonstrates that East Asia is not safe from terrorist attacks. This descriptive analysis of terrorist attacks in East Asia will help first responders, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), hospital-based medical providers, and policymakers establish a more refined hazard vulnerability assessment (HVA) framework and develop a Counter-Terrorism Medicine (CTM) mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery plan. METHODS: This is a descriptive observational study drawing data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) from January 1, 1970 through December 31, 2020. Epidemiology outcomes included primary weapon type, primary target type, the country where the incident occurred, and the number of total deaths and injured collected. Data from 2021 were not yet available at the time of this study. Results were exported into an Excel spreadsheet (Microsoft Corp.; Redmond, Washington USA) for analysis. RESULTS: There were 779 terrorism-related events in East Asia from 1970 through 2020. In total, the attacks resulted in 1,123 deaths and 9,061 persons injured. The greatest number of attacks (371; 47.63%) occurred in Japan and the second most occurred in China (268; 34.4%). Explosives were the most used primary weapon type (308; 39.54%) in the region, followed by incendiary devices (260; 33.38%). Terrorist attacks drastically diminished from their peak of 92 in 1990, but there were additional peaks of 88 in 1996, 18 in 2000, 20 in 2008, and 36 attacks in 2014. CONCLUSIONS: A total of 779 terrorist attacks occurred from 1970 through 2020 in East Asia, resulting in 1,123 deaths and 9,061 injuries. Of those, 82.03% attacks occurred in Japan and China. Terrorist attacks drastically diminished since their peak in 1996, but there is an overall uptrend in attacks since 1999.