Random Violent Crime in China Exposes the CCP’s Institutional Failures: Experts

A security guard stands near a sports center where a man rammed a car into people exercising, in Zhuhai, China, Nov. 11, 2024. Kyodo News via AP

News Analysis

Within nine days in November, at least three incidents of mass violence—two of them deadly—occurred in China. According to state media, 43 people were killed in the attacks.

They followed at least 18 earlier violent attacks reported this year, including three that targeted American and Japanese nationals.

Following the attacks, local authorities were told to closely monitor individuals who have no family or property.

According to China experts, the attacks have exposed institutional failures of the communist regime, and pressuring people who have nothing to lose will likely lead to more attacks.

On Nov. 11, a man surnamed Fan mowed down dozens of people with an SUV as they were exercising at a sports center in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai, in Guangdong Province. According to authorities, 35 people died and an additional 43 were hospitalized.

The incident took place a day before the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, one of the country’s largest civil and military air shows. In the lead-up to such major events, Chinese authorities typically increase police presence and tighten security measures.

The police’s preliminary investigation determined that Fan’s motive was likely his dissatisfaction with the division of financial assets in his recent divorce.

However, the public remained skeptical, as the Zhuhai police later deleted references to the divorce proceedings from their report. In addition, the incident occurred near the Zhuhai Intermediate Court, with the surrounding area largely composed of residential buildings for civil servants and their families, reinforcing public belief in the narrative that Fan had sought revenge due to injustice in the legal system.

Some witnesses of the incident were also doubtful of the official casualty count, yet online comments were quickly censored, and few additional details were available from the police or media.

On Nov. 16, a man attacked people at random with a knife at a school in Yixing, eastern Jiangsu Province, resulting in eight deaths and 17 injuries.

On Nov. 19, a driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd outside a primary school in Changde, central Hunan Province, leaving an unspecified number of people injured.

Li Yingzhi, an exiled rights activist and scholar, attributed the motivation behind indiscriminate killings to people’s despair.

“Logically, if someone has a grievance, they should target the person responsible. But he may not even be able to find that person,” he told The Epoch Times. “Why resort to killing innocent people? Because he has reached complete despair and no longer wants to live.”

Li believes the root cause lies in the systemic failures of Chinese society under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) top-down governance.

“First, there is suppression of free speech and a lack of press freedom. Second, the petitioning system is ineffective. Third, the judiciary fails to function properly. These are all systemic issues,” he said. “If there were effective channels to resolve problems, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Authorities Increase Suppression in Response

It’s worth noting that the CCP authorities stated that such attacks are “isolated” incidents. Domestic discussions were suppressed, and real-time information and discussion was swiftly deleted from Chinese-language social media.

A media professional in China confirmed to China Digital Times that a reporting ban was imposed just two hours after the vehicle-ramming incident in Zhuhai.

The day after the Zhuhai attack, CCP leader Xi Jinping issued a rare directive, calling for “strengthened risk prevention at the source, timely resolution of disputes, and strict prevention of extreme incidents.”

In response to these incidents, the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate held meetings, pledging to “reinforce risk prevention at the source, and strictly crack down on serious crimes in accordance with the laws,” according to state-run media.

Xi Jinping inspects People's Liberation Army soldiers at a barracks in Hong Kong on June 30, 2017. Dale de la Rey/AFP via Getty Images

Li dismissed these measures as futile.

“These perpetrators no longer wish to live. Using severe draconian law to deter them—doesn’t that seem absurd?” he asked, referencing a saying by the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu, “If the people do not fear death, what use is there in threatening them with death?”

Wu Zuolai, a U.S.-based scholar and commentator, believes that the authorities have no real solution to these incidents and dismissed as empty words Xi’s call to address the problem “at the source,” that is, to resolve conflicts within local communities.

“Many of these conflicts are caused by the local governments themselves, so how can the problem-makers also be the problem-solvers?” he told The Epoch Times.

Wu said that the judicial system and news media are supposed to help address people’s grievances. However, rights lawyers are now barred from defending their clients, and investigative journalism remains a high-risk profession in China.

“Some journalists went to the front lines to report and were beaten to the point of death. It’s truly heartbreaking to see,” he said. “The government no longer allows intermediate forces, does not permit civil society to exist, nor does it allow independent social organizations to resolve problems.”

The recent random attacks come amid an economic downturn in China with a high youth unemployment rate.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in October, China’s urban unemployment rate for the 16–24 age group, excluding students, was 17.1 percent.

In July, the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times interviewed a recently emigrated former civil servant from China, who stated that local governments had been inflating youth employment statistics to meet the demands of their superiors.

In comparison, the youth unemployment rate in the United States was 9.8 percent in July, and the European Union’s youth unemployment rate in September stood at 15.3 percent, according to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor and the European Commission.

Hu Liren, one of the first-generation entrepreneurs in China’s internet industry, believes that the economic crisis in China has led to a social crisis in which hopeless individuals have turned to random killings as a form of revenge against society.

“The Chinese economy has completely collapsed,” he told The Epoch Times. “The corruption within the entire system over the years, and the exploitation of the people by the bureaucracy, have led to widespread misery. Everyone feels there is no way out.”

Hu, who is from Shanghai and has many entrepreneur and financier friends, said that even many businesses at his level can’t survive anymore.

“Not only have businesses collapsed, but some are also deeply in debt. Some of my friends have already fled abroad,” he said.

“Now that the country has reached this point, everyone is experiencing tremendous panic, so we are in a vicious cycle.

“The word ‘collapsing’ is very fitting to describe the current state of society. That’s why such malicious incidents have started to explode.”

Lily Zhou and Yi Ru contributed to this report.