Knife attacks in China raise fears of growing social tensions

Following the fatal knife attack on a school bus full of Japanese children near Shanghai last month, the Japanese consulate in the city has issued a stern warning to its citizens.

“Recently, there have been stabbings across China in various places where people gather (such as parks, schools and subways). Please be very aware of your surroundings when you leave the house,” it said.

The attack by a 52-year-old man in the city of Suzhou in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, which left the Chinese bus conductor dead and a Japanese woman and child injured, followed a series of incidents against Japanese citizens amid increasing anti-Japanese rhetoric in Chinese state media.

Last August, attackers pelted a Japanese school in Suzhou with eggs, and another school in Qingdao, in eastern China’s Shandong province, was pelted with stones after Japan began releasing radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant – a move China strongly opposed.

In recognition of the possible racist motivation for the Suzhou attack, major Chinese internet platforms have banned hate speech against Japan.

But the tragedy is just the latest in a series of violent incidents that point to rising social tensions, analysts said. Last month, four teachers from a US college were stabbed to death in a park in Jilin, following a series of similar attacks on Chinese across the country this year.

The Chinese government does not release specific data on knife attacks, and authorities typically release few details from investigations. In May, China’s Ministry of Public Security said the country had one of the world’s lowest murder rates and crime rates in general.

But despite official censorship, videos of the stabbings spread like wildfire on China’s social media, fueling speculation that social hardship was fueling growing discontent.

China’s economy is in a slump due to a persistent slump in the real estate sector, and unemployment is above the official rate of around five percent, according to economists.

The Communist Party’s repressive social system has led to an “increasing atomization of people,” said Wang Yaqiu, China research director at Freedom House. Isolated individuals may resort to random acts of violence to express their anger and alienation. “The economy plays a role,” she added. “Economic crises make life very difficult and cause discontent.”

China’s security forces strictly control access to weapons. Private gun ownership is prohibited in most cases and even the sale of replica weapons is restricted. Citizens are also often required to show identification when purchasing large knives.

But knife attacks still occur with some regularity. This week, a 64-year-old man killed three people and injured another in Shenyang, the capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning, the city’s police said. The suspect is said to have a history of mental illness.

In mid-June, a 54-year-old man injured three people in a shooting spree at a subway station in Shanghai. In May, an attacker killed two people and injured 10 at an elementary school in Guixi in the southeastern province of Jiangxi. In the same month, an attacker killed two people and injured 21 at a hospital in Zhenxiong in the southwestern province of Yunnan.

Shuai Wei, a lecturer in sociology, social policy and criminology at the University of Liverpool, said there was no official data showing that the number of knife attacks had increased significantly, but he added that data showing a decline in violent crime rates “should also be interpreted with caution”.

“The reliability of crime data in China is often questioned due to potential underreporting and possible manipulation of statistics for political reasons,” he said.

Wei added that cadres could reclassify crimes or lower their reporting rates to convey a more favorable image of public safety and social stability in their cities.

The nature of the recent attacks, typically carried out by middle-aged men against random strangers, is reminiscent of a phenomenon known in Japan as “personal terrorism,” in which individuals commit mass murder to draw attention to their own opinions.

In China, previous studies have shown a positive correlation between crime rates and several economic indicators, including inflation, unemployment, and differences in consumption and employment between rural and urban areas, Wei said.

“We need to make a greater effort … to understand what impact the economic downturn will have not only on people’s mental health but also on society as a whole, to see whether or not crime rates will increase over the next five to 10 years,” he said.

In Suzhou, authorities celebrated the victim Hu Youping as a “model of bravery.” Hu, the bus conductor, “rushed forward without hesitation” to confront the attacker and save the lives of children, the government said. The Japanese embassy in Beijing and the consulate in Shanghai flew their flags at half-mast in “salute to Hu’s noble deeds.”

However, Chinese authorities did not mention the Japanese victims. Beijing does not want to undo the charm offensive it launched this year to win back international tourists and students, which includes visa-free access for a growing number of countries, analysts say.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry this week played down any suggestion that the attack in Suzhou had any wider significance. “Such isolated cases could happen in any country in the world,” a spokesman said, adding that Beijing would protect foreign nationals as well as its own citizens.

But one commentator on Weibo, China’s microblogging platform, said the government owed Hu a debt because his heroism had saved Beijing from a serious international embarrassment.

“If a bus full of foreign children had been killed, the international impact would have been enormous,” the commentator said.