At least 21 people are dead after a Chinese New Year mass shooting on Feb. 10 in Ju County of northern Shandong Province. The news casts a shadow over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime’s volatile social outlook.
On Feb. 11, rumors circulating online speculated about the identity of the killer and the death toll but were immediately deleted. Related reports on IFeng.com and NetEase on Feb. 12 were quickly removed, as were posts on Weibo and Douyin. According to pages saved online, the authorities said more than ten people were killed and that one of the suspects had been taken in. The Chinese police are now saying the matter is confidential.
Wu Yu (a pseudonym) told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that police sealed off the village of Zhaike, Luohe town, Ju county, Rizhao city, where the murder took place; no one was allowed to enter.
Ms. Wu lived in Luohe town, and she said one of the victims was her classmate.
“That night [New Year’s Eve], five families and 11 people were killed. On the morning of the first day of the year, the killers came back to kill ten more people; now, a total of 21 people were killed, and three were heavily injured in critical condition. The gun used by the killers might be either a shotgun or a homemade gun.” Ms. Wu said.
Ms.Wu revealed that a doctor rushed to the scene of the incident and was shot dead, and the murderer also killed two police officers who may have arrived later.
She surmised the murderer chose Lunar New Year’s Eve to conduct the crime because no one could hear the sound of gunshots when the whole village set off firecrackers.
She added there might be at least three or five culprits in this case, and two more were at large, but the police did not allow the disclosure of this information to the outside.
So far, authorities have not yet provided the details of the bloody case. An emergency notice from the Rizhao Municipal Political and Legal Affairs Commission dated Feb. 11, the next day after the murder took place, went viral, claiming that it needed focus on 16 categories of people under investigation, such as petitioners, those who had failed to make investments or have problems in real estate, medical, and labor, as well as those who were unemployed, were “mentally deranged,” were unsupervised youth, and others who “had a tendency to retaliate against the society.”
Suspicions Over Ju Country Bloodshed
Mr. Shi noted that the Shandong murder case was highly suspicious, while the actual details, including the motive for the crime, remain unknown due to the blockade by the authorities.
“There are many rumors that the murderer used a gun; some say a hunting rifle, and some say it was a gun used to drive nails in construction projects. But the Chinese authorities each year carried out rather severe anti-gun campaigns.” Mr. Shi said, citing China has one of the strictest gun bans in the world. On Oct. 1, 1996, the CCP regime implemented the Firearms Control Law, which stipulates that citizens are forbidden to possess firearms and ammunition illegally or will be held criminally liable.
Second, according to Mr. Shi, this is a planned revenge killing case.
“If the murderer killed someone in the night, he should have run away by all rights, so why did he return to kill again in the early hours of the following day? This person would have to have an intense grudge before he would do that. It was not killing on impulse; he (the killer) planned it prudently, he had it all planned out, and he probably had a ”haters list.'”
In October 2007, 28-year-old Beijing resident Yang Jia rode a rented bicycle around Shanghai. He was intercepted by police officers who suspected that Yang’s bike was stolen and took him to the police station for interrogation for up to six hours, during which time they assaulted him. After his release, Yang filed several complaints against the police station but to no avail.
On July 1, 2008, a Shanghai court sentenced Yang to death after he stormed into the Zhabei District Public Security Bureau with a knife, killing six police officers and injuring several others and a security guard.
“That sort of bloody case would result from various grievances and conflicts. Because this society does not have flexibility, space, or a channel of relief, and now, when the CCP government has more control over the people, this kind of thing may increase.” Mr. Shi said.
The communist regime has snared into economic recession and the failure of the social operation mechanism, in Mr. Shi’s view. As a result, Chinese society as a whole is dysfunctional, lacking overall relief and social comfort.
Detection Rate of Murder Cases in China
On Pinnacle View, Li Jun, a Chinese independent TV producer based in the United States, said that the number of homicides in China has been rising in the past two to three years. Still, most cases cannot be reported; even when covered, they are quickly deleted.“What is reported in the Chinese media is the propaganda of the government departments, such as saying that ‘China is now the safest country in the world, with only about 0.5 per 100,000 homicides, which is much, much lower than that in the West, so we are very safe.’”
According to Mr. Li, since 2004, the CCP has put forward a task that the Ministry of Public Security must solve all murder cases; the local public security departments at all levels reportedly achieved a 100 percent detection rate.
“This detection percentage is a forgery.”
“I had asked my friend [within the security system] how they did it. They say that if a case is not solved, they don’t include it in their statistics, and they don’t report it to the public. That is why the general public has no idea how many murders have taken place [each year in the country],” Mr. Shi said.
Only about half of the homicides could be expected to be solved and made public.
Deteriorating Public Security
Guo Jun, the head of The Epoch Times’ Hong Kong branch, said on the Pinnacle View program that the party officials, police, and other civil servants in the communist government’s law enforcement are becoming increasingly unreasonable, procedural, and overbearing. These factors are contributing to civil unrest.Ms. Guo indicated that in the name of maintaining law and order, the Chinese Communist regime launched large and small-scale campaigns to suppress the people, thus deepening the prominent social conflicts. For example, to ensure the 20th Congress in 2022, the CCP employed a nationwide social security campaign and arrested more than 1.4 million people, according to Qiu Baoli, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security, in a press briefing.
“If we calculate based on a population of 1.4 billion, it means that one person in every 1,000 people has been arrested.” Ms. Guo gauged quite a lot of people may have been detained without any legal basis simply because the authorities perceived them as a threat or to carry out a political mission.
Even with such a vast 1.4 million arrests, social security in China has deteriorated even more, Ms. Guo noted.
The decline in security often stems from shifts in the broader social landscape, for instance, the consequence of a weakening economy, said Ms. Guo, adding that over the past two years, China’s economy has experienced a downturn, marked by decreasing incomes, bankruptcies, and shrinking private assets. Many individuals who were once considered middle class have now fallen into poverty.
“In particular, with the rise in youth unemployment, it can be assumed that law and order will deteriorate.” Ms. Guo said.
Another notable point, as per Ms. Guo, is the large layoff of civil servants and auxiliary police officers due to local fiscal deficits.
CCP’s Rule in Turmoil
Li Hongkuan, editor-in-chief of the online magazine Da Cankao (Big News), shared his thoughts on the incident on Pinnacle Views, saying that the cause of this vicious incident was rooted in the CCP’s governance.“The Chinese have embarked on such a murderous path as they have lost confidence in the government’s mediation mechanism, and the people themselves are attempting to seek justice with violence, a sign that the Chinese society has been in turmoil.” Mr. Li said.
Mr. Li cited another case in Pingyang County in eastern Zhejiang Province, which occurred during the last Lunar New Year festival and resulted in six deaths.
According to Chinese media, the killer is a resident who was seeking revenge for a village cadre who had appropriated his family’s land. They even forced him into a psychiatric hospital for three years to prevent him from complaining.
Mr. Li believes China’s economy is now in a stage of depression and collapse, many people’s daily lives have experienced fundamental changes, “Many lose money, and many can not find ways to earn money, which is to push people to the edge of life, people are unable to withstand the psychological pressure, and then may choose to go to the extremes.”
“So Chinese society faces a great challenge, and how to get through this chaotic period of the communist regime collapse is a test of everyone’s wisdom for survival.” Mr. Li said.
