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In many respects, the Chinese Communist Party’s response to one of the deadliest mass killings in recent Chinese history is drearily familiar. The authorities now say that at least thirty-five people were killed and dozens injured on Monday evening when the sixty-two-year-old driver of an SUV rammed his vehicle into crowds at a local sports stadium. But it took the authorities more than a day to release details and initial online searches were heavily censored. Videos from the scene in the southern city of Zhuhai posted to social media were deleted — even state media reports were removed from the internet. BBC journalists were told to stop filming when they tried to report from the area.
The track where the incident took place was popular with families, who crowded the area to dance, run and walk on most weekday evenings. Videos show the vehicle ploughing through one walking group before making a sharp turn and ramming into another group, leaving bodies scattered on the ground. Many elderly people, as well as teenagers and children, were among the injured, state media is now reporting. Hundreds of rescue personnel were despatched to the area to provide emergency treatment for the injured at the scene. Police said the driver, whose surname is Fan, has been captured and was hospitalized for stab wounds believed to have been self-inflicted.
The CCP is deeply concerned about social stability amid a worsening economy
The attack took place on the eve of the Zhuhai air show, China’s biggest, where the military has been putting some of its latest kit on display — including for the first time a new stealth fighter. There was no suggestion the the attack was related to the airshow, though it is the second such incident: during the 2008 show, at least four people were killed and twenty injured when a man drove a truck into a crowded schoolyard. Police said that attacker had been seeking revenge over a traffic dispute.
Initial reports on this week’s attack said Fan was angry about the financial settlement in his divorce and the failure of a court to uphold his appeal. However, that detail was removed from later reports.
This is only the latest of several recent cases of apparent vehicle attacks. Earlier this year, a bus rammed into a crowd near a middle school in Taian in East China’s Shandong province, killing eleven people. In March, a car careered into a group of schoolchildren in Dezhou, Shandong, killing two and injuring six. Few details of these attacks were provided.
The slow release of information about the Zhuhai attack was criticized on Chinese social media (though much of that criticism too was deleted). “This happened yesterday, but we only found out about it today. If it happened in other places, our media might have been following the news all day long,” said one user of the Weibo platform.
The CCP simply does not do transparency. A plane crash in March 2022, when a Chinese Eastern Boeing 737 ploughed into the ground in Guangxi province killing all 132 people onboard, is still officially under investigation, since it is “very complicated.” Outside experts and investigators believe it was a case of mass murder, the pilot deliberately crashing his plane into the ground. The flight controls were pushed to put the plane into a dive, there was no evidence of forced entry to cockpit or technical malfunction. The only obstacle to reaching that conclusion is CCP obduracy.
Yet, it would be wrong to treat the CCP’s response to the Zhuhai tragedy as just another case of the the party exercising its traditional reflexes. There is growing evidence that the CCP is deeply concerned about social stability amid a worsening economy. They fear that a lack of any meaningful social safety net and a sense of social injustice might drive people to desperate measures. They do not want violent incidents depicted (or justified) as a response to dire social circumstances or to grievances — hence the removal of the divorce details. “Social stability” has become a significant theme of recent party meetings, which have included calls to set up “comprehensive social security governance centers, improving mechanisms for properly handling internal contradictions among the people under new circumstances” — party speak for the stresses and strains of a faltering economy.
Once the CCP got its story about Monday’s attack relatively straight, Premier Li Qiang called for a swift investigation and severe punishment of the perpetrator, while saying the government must “investigate hidden risks and social conflicts.” President Xi Jinping called for “making every effort to safeguard the security of people’s lives and social stability.” The punishment bit is second nature for the CCP, social stability is becoming an increasing challenge.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
