A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out ‘in-depth investigations’ into disputes involving family, neighbours, land and wages.” And on Saturday, China’s Supreme Court met and declared that it would “severely punish major vicious crimes in accordance with the law and maintain social stability.” Neither report mentioned the violent attacks that precipitated these official responses; news and discussion of the attacks have been heavily censored online. During a tour of Zhejiang province on Sunday, Yin Bai, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, urged China’s security forces to leverage their troves of data to help predict and prevent such attacks. Dozens of Chinese cities have reportedly implemented increased security measures in places where large crowds congregate, including at some schools.

Although many articles and essays on the subject of these indiscriminate killings—often referred to as “Xianzhong” attacks, after the reputedly bloodthirsty Ming-era peasant rebel Zhang Xianzhong—have been deleted by platform censors, some of the more sensible mooted solutions include strengthening the social safety net and offering more services to people suffering from poverty, depression, or mental illness. Harsher measures include predictive policing tools and increased punishments, although experts and ordinary citizens alike have questioned whether these would have any meaningful deterrent effects. There have also been reports of local governments stepping up efforts to identify individuals who might present a risk of violence.

A now-censored essay from the WeChat account “Common Sense Distribution Center” discusses the implications of labeling troubled individuals, particularly when this involves shunting them into such arbitrary categories as “people suffering from ‘four lacks and five frustrations.’” For who among us, asks the author, hasn’t at one time or another fallen into one of these supposedly high-risk categories?

The “four lacks” refer to people who lack a spouse or children; a job or stable income; normal social interactions; and financial assets such as a house or car. The “five frustrations” (or “five losses”) refer to frustrations over failed investments, estranged relationships, feelings of being thwarted in one’s daily life, loss of emotional equilibrium, and suffering from mental illness.

I’ve heard that some communities have recently begun making lists of local residents thought to suffer from these “four lacks and five frustrations.” According to one rumor, “The most notable characteristic of these people is that they have no “weak spots” that can be leveraged—that is, no children or family ties—therefore they’re the ones that community workers need to keep an eye on."

Speaking of which, I can’t help but think of a poem that I wrote a few days ago with the encouragement of a poet friend. That day, I happened to see a beetle crawling along the road.

Soft Underbelly

In this urban forest of steel-reinforced concrete
It traverses canyons, rivers, sun-dappled avenues
Steering clear of vast reptilian creatures such as buses
With minute precision, it can reach even the tiniest of destinations
Watching it crawl into a clump of grass, I feel a sense of relief,
followed by a pang of sorrow—
When threatened by danger, at least it has that hard protective shell
Whereas I am all soft underbelly, exposed
for all the world to see

Truly, everyone in this world has experienced these familial or emotional bonds that make us vulnerable, that form our "soft underbelly." And of course, life can also sever those bonds at any given time. For example, the male-female population imbalance means that not too many years from now, tens of millions of unmarried men will join the ranks of those with "four lacks and five frustrations," which ought to keep community workers busy for quite some time.

I remember the online rumor about Shanghai conducting a survey to identify residents who might be prone to mental illness. Symptoms of suspected mental illness included "unexplained absences from school or work, not leaving the house, or not having any social interactions." Now, take a look at yourself in the mirror and be honest: do you think you might potentially fit any of these criteria?

[…] It’s certainly possible that individuals grappling with the so-called "four lacks and five frustrations" might pose a threat to society, and certain circumstances might increase the likelihood of them going to extremes. However, since our individual circumstances and even our individual identities are so fluid, and the population base is so vast, trying to screen and identify those with "four lacks and five frustrations" is a nearly impossible task.

[…] When a person is reduced to a label or turned into a symbol; stripped of their identity as a father, mother, son, or daughter; deprived of their status as a flesh-and-blood person; then our basic human empathy toward that person seems to disappear. When a person is killed, others generally respond with compassion, but when a person is reduced to a label or symbol, there will always be some who delight when that "label" or "symbol" is destroyed.

To maximize the safety of everyone, our society must undergo a radical transformation to restore its fundamental humanity. [Journalist] Xiong Peiyun once said that where symbols take root, reason collapses. Conversely, when the labels and symbols we attach to others are swept away, our fundamental empathy and kindness toward others are restored, and our society sees the return of common sense and reason.

If more people possessed a “soft underbelly” of conscience and reason, there’d be no need to be so nervous about the “four lacks and five frustrations” among us. [Chinese]

It has long been known that China’s public security apparatus keeps tabs on citizens thought to be potentially troublesome. In 2018, CDT reported on an anonymous leak of dozens of tags used to describe “persons of interest” in the public security database: “The […] list was posted anonymously by someone claiming to have worked for many years in China’s public security system, and to have compiled these dozens of tags used to describe individuals in public security databases after coming to see such tools as instruments of oppression. […] Some labels denote family circumstances such as single, impoverished, or poorly educated parents or variously vulnerable children; others highlight mental health issues and threats of ‘revenge on society.’”