A year of mass attacks reveals anger and frustration

“The Chinese people are absolutely miserable,” said a social media post following another mass killing in the country earlier this year. The same user also warned: “There will only be more and more copycat attacks.”

Another wrote: “This tragedy reflects the darkness within society.”

Such grim assessments, following a spate of deadly incidents in China through 2024, have raised questions about what drives people to kill strangers en masse. “Revenge against society”.

David Shack, an associate professor at Griffith University in Australia, says such attacks are still rare given China's huge population, and they are not new. But they seem to come in waves, often as imitative attempts to attract attention.

This year has been particularly painful.

From 2019 to 2023, police recorded three to five cases each year, in which the perpetrators attacked pedestrians or strangers.

In 2024, that number jumped to 19.

In 2019, three people were killed and 28 others were injured in such incidents; In 2023, 16 people were killed and 40 injured, and in 2024, 63 people were killed and 166 injured. November was particularly bloody.

On the 11th of that month, a 62-year-old man drove his car into people exercising outside a stadium in the city of Zhuhai, killing at least 35 people. Police said the driver was not happy with his divorce settlement. He was sentenced to death this week.

Days later, in the city of Changde, a man drove his car into a crowd of children and parents outside a primary school, injuring 30 of them. Authorities said he was angry because of financial losses and family problems.

In the same week, a 21-year-old who was unable to graduate after failing his exams went on a stabbing rampage on his campus in the city of Wuxi, killing eight people and wounding 17 others.

In September, a 37-year-old man ran through a shopping mall in Shanghai. He stabbed people as he went. In June, four American coaches were attacked in a park by a 55-year-old man carrying a knife. There were two separate attacks on Japanese citizens, including one in which a 10-year-old boy was stabbed to death outside his school.

Professor Schack says the perpetrators largely targeted “random people” to show their “dissatisfaction with society”.

In a country with massive surveillance capabilities, where women rarely hesitate to walk alone at night, these killings have raised understandable concern.

So, what has prompted so many mass attacks in China this year?

One of the main sources of stress in China right now is the stagnant economy. It is no secret that the country suffers from high rates of youth unemployment, massive debt, and a real estate crisis that has consumed the life savings of many families, sometimes without anything in return.

On the outskirts of most major cities there are entire residential areas where construction has stopped because debt-laden developers cannot afford to complete them. In 2022, the BBC interviewed people Camping in the concrete shells of their unfinished apartmentswithout running water, electricity and windows because they had nowhere else to stay.

“Optimism certainly seems to have faded,” says George Magnus, a research associate at the China Center at the University of Oxford. “Let's use the word trapped, just for a moment. I think China has become trapped in a kind of cycle of repression. Social repression and economic repression, on the one hand, and a kind of faltering economic development model on the other hand.”

Studies seem to indicate a significant change in attitudes, with a marked increase in pessimism among Chinese people about their personal future. A major joint analysis between the US and China, which has gone on record for years as saying that inequality in society can often be attributed to a lack of effort or ability, found in its latest poll that people now… Blame 'unfair economic system'.

“The question is who do people really blame?” Mr. Magnus asks. “The next step from that is that the system is unfair to me, and I can't break through it. I can't change my circumstances.”

In countries with healthy media, if you feel you've been unfairly fired from your job or your house has been demolished by corrupt construction companies backed by local officials, you might turn to journalists to get your story heard. But that is rarely an option in China, where the press is controlled by the Communist Party and is unlikely to publish news that reflects poorly at any level of government.

Then there are the courts – also run by and for the party – which are slow and inefficient. There has been much talk on social media about Zhuhai's attacker's alleged motive: that he did not achieve what he believed was a fair divorce settlement in court.

Other outlets to vent frustration have also narrowed or been closed altogether, experts say.

Chinese people often air their grievances online, says Lynette Ong, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, who has conducted important research on how the Chinese state responds to pushback from its own people.

“(They) will go online and berate the government… just to vent their anger,” she explains. “Or they may organize a small protest, which the police often allow if it is on a small scale.” “But this kind of opposition, small opposition, has been shut down in the last two years.”

There are many examples of this: increased censorship on the Internet, which prohibits words or expressions considered controversial or critical; crackdowns on garish Halloween costumes that mock officials; Or when men in civilian clothes, apparently mobilized by local officials, Beating protesters in Henan Province Foreign banks that froze their accounts.

As for dealing with people's mental and emotional responses to these stressors, this was also found to be lacking. Specialists say that counseling services in China are largely inadequate, leaving no outlet for those who feel isolated, lonely and depressed in modern Chinese society.

“Counseling can help build emotional resilience,” says Professor Sylvia Kwok of the City University of Hong Kong, adding that China needs to increase mental health services, especially for at-risk groups who have experienced trauma or are mentally ill.

“People need to find different strategies or constructive ways to deal with their feelings…making them less likely to react violently in moments of extreme emotional stress.”

Together, these factors indicate that the lid is tightening on Chinese society, creating a pressure cooker-like situation.

“There aren't a lot of people spreading mass killings,” Magnus says. “But tensions seem to still be rising, and there doesn't seem to be any way for them to subside in the near future.”

What should worry the Communist Party is the commentary from the general public who blame those in power for this.

Take this observation for example: “If the government really acted fairly and impartially, there wouldn't be so much anger and grievance in Chinese society… The government's efforts have focused on creating a superficial sense of harmony. While it may appear that they care about disadvantaged people, they have caused “Their actions are instead in the greatest injustice.”

While violent attacks are on the rise in many countries, according to Professor Ong, the difference in China is that officials do not have much experience in dealing with them.

“I think the authorities are very concerned because they have never seen this before, and their instinct is to crack down.”

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the Zhuhai attack, he seemed to acknowledge growing pressures in society. He urged officials across the country to “learn the hard lessons from the incident, address risks at their roots, resolve disputes and conflicts early, and take proactive measures to prevent extremist crimes.”

But, so far, the lessons learned seem to have led to a push to speed up the police response using greater surveillance, rather than considering any changes to the way China is run.

“China is moving into a new phase, a new phase not seen since the late 1970s,” says Professor Ong, referring to the time when the country began opening up to the world again, unleashing massive change.

“We need to prepare for unexpected events, such as many indiscriminate attacks, pockets of protests, and social instability.”