Seven other people were also injured in the attack in Kaiyuan city, Liaoning province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A single suspect nicknamed Yang has been arrested and police are investigating the case, Kaiyuan Municipal Public Safety Bureau said in a statement.
Police did not provide the motive for the attack, nor details about the suspect or victims. CCTV reported that a police officer who helped subdue the suspect was among the injured.
A video posted to Chinese social media by the state-run Beijing News showed two police officers – one of them with a broom – confronting the suspect and knocking him to the ground.
Knife attacks in public are not uncommon in China.
In June, 37 children and two adults were injured by a knife attacker at a primary school in the southwestern region of Guangxi.
In October 2018, a woman cut at least 14 children in a kindergarten in central Chongqing with a kitchen knife.
Nine students were murdered in a high school in Shaanxi province in April 2018 by a 28-year-old man who was later sentenced to death.
In 2017, 11 students were injured after a man climbed over the wall of a kindergarten with a knife and started attacking them.
But perhaps the worst wave of stabbings occurred in 2010, including a three consecutive day period when attackers targeted schools. The Chinese Ministry of Education responded to those events by ordering schools to reinforce security and deny strangers access to campuses.