A veil of silence has fallen around the car ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong, this Monday. The shocking attack—the most deadly “Xianzhong” incident in a year marked by them—has become a highly politically sensitive incident.
The Zhuhai attack was the first such mass killing to elicit a public response from Xi Jinping. In a statement released on Wednesday, Xi urged “all-out efforts” to treat the injured and demanded severe punishment for the perpetrator. Notably, according to Xinhua, he also instructed: “all localities and relevant authorities to draw lessons from the case, and to strengthen their prevention and control of risks at the source. He also emphasized the importance of resolving disputes in time, preventing the occurrence of extreme cases, and making every effort to safeguard the security of people’s lives and social stability.” Over email, Jeremy Brown, a professor at Simon Fraser University who specializes in modern China and official handling of accidents and other “sudden incidents,” told China Digital Times that Xi’s intervention was striking:
“I’m very struck by Xi Jinping’s intervention on the tragedy: ‘strengthen their prevention and control of risks at the source. He also emphasized the importance of resolving disputes in time, preventing the occurrence of extreme cases.’ SUVs are deadly weapons and more people own them than ever in China. Some SUV and knife owners get in disputes, aren’t satisfied with the resolution, and decide to kill strangers. It’s striking that Xi already thinks he knows that the Zhuhai killer’s dispute could have been resolved better or quicker, or that there was a ‘risk at the source’ that local authorities could have done better to address before the attack. It puts lots of pressure on local police to identify and control lone wolf car or stabbing attacks before they happen. It’s striking to compare Xi’s words with the words of other world leaders after mass killings. Dispute resolution is a new dimension to me.”
Xi Jinping’s emphasis on control was mirrored by an attempt to curtail public mourning. Police removed flowers and bottles of liquor from a spontaneous memorial set up outside the stadium where the attack occurred. Uniformed and plain clothes officers also prevented bystanders from mourning or taking photos at the memorial. At The New York Times, Vivian Wang wrote about the scene at the Zhuhai stadium memorial:
A delivery driver on a motorcycle unloaded five bouquets of flowers, which he said he was doing on behalf of people who had ordered them from a nearby flower shop. He had agreed to spend the entire day delivering for that shop, he said, because many other drivers were unwilling to go, worrying about police interference. As he spoke, an officer told him to move on.
Workers took the flowers to a nearby building, which was shielded by temporary red barriers. “We’re organizing them,” a man in plainclothes told reporters when asked why the flowers were being removed. “You can see our workers are treating these flowers very solemnly.”
[…] “The national news departments post. How can people like us dare to post?” [a landscaper at the complex,] who gave his surname, Yao, said, noting that all social media profiles were linked to I.P. addresses that can reveal users’ locations. Sharing would only lead to trouble, he said. [Source]
Authorities are highly sensitive to spontaneous public expressions of grief, and routinely curtail them. After floods killed hundreds of people in Henan in July of 2021, officials cordoned off an impromptu memorial erected at a Zhengzhou subway station and plainclothes policemen intimidated and detained those who came to pay their respects. This year’s Qingming Festival, a traditional day of remembrance for the dead, was marked by massive police presences at sites associated with the late premier Li Keqiang.
The physical removal of memorials has been accompanied with an information blackout. Reporters seeking to speak with the families of victims at local hospitals were prevented from doing so by local officials. News articles that quoted survivors were quickly taken down by censors. A BBC film crew attempting to film a broadcast from outside the stadium was harassed by an unidentified man who grabbed at their camera and demanded to see their press credentials:
At Reuters, David Kirton and Nicoco Chan wrote about the news blackout that followed the attack:
China’s state broadcaster CCTV did not mention the attack in its 30-minute midday news bulletin. Instead, the programme led with President Xi Jinping’s departure for the APEC summit in Peru and devoted a portion of the airtime to the airshow.
Other state media, such as China Daily’s Chinese language website, also prominently displayed the news of Xi’s Peru trip. The current affairs part of China Daily’s website and the local area page did not mention the incident either.
[…] “The censorship is normal because all these incidents are censored to try to control the narrative. The police statement will be the only official explanation, and they won’t allow people to challenge or to discuss it,” said Luqiu. [Source]
The death toll, 35, resurrected longstanding rumors about official underreporting of death tolls after deadly incidents. A rumor has circulated on the Chinese internet for over a decade that death tolls are capped at 35 for most incidents. A simple statistical analysis of reported death tolls after recent deadly incidents conducted by Chritian Göbel, a professor of China Studies at the University of Vienna, disproved that theory. The rumor’s origin lies in “death quotas” set by the government to reduce traffic and industrial accidents that perversely encouraged officials to lie about the death toll to save their jobs. The national government has also mandated that any accidents that cause 30 or more deaths automatically trigger a centrally-led investigation and hefty fines, which has also led to the likely underreporting of death tolls. While the rumor of death undercounts is unlikely to be true, Chenchen Zhang argued that it is a revealing look at Chinese public trust:
Samuel Wade contributed reporting to this article.
