Blaming the World

China on Monday executed two men who committed deadly attacks that killed dozens of people in November, incidents that led to concerns over an increase in “revenge on society crimes,” the Associated Press reported.

One of those executed was Xu Jiajin, who killed eight people and injured 17 in a stabbing spree at his vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi. According to the police, the 21-year-old student was frustrated with his poor academic performance and the low compensation of his internship, CBS News reported.

Xu’s attack came less than a week after another by Fan Weiqu, 62, who deliberately drove his car into a crowd outside a sports stadium in Zhuhai in southern China, killing at least 35 people, Al Jazeera reported. The man – executed on Monday – was upset over his divorce settlement, said the police.

Fan’s attack is deemed the deadliest in more than a decade, with officials and observers saying it was part of a trend of so-called “revenge on society crimes”: These occur when individuals feel treated unjustly by society and take their frustrations out on civilians, Al Jazeera wrote.

In 2024, officials said there were numerous incidents that fell into this category. For example, in October, a knife attack at a school in Beijing injured five people, while another stabbing incident in a Shanghai supermarket killed three. In July, a car deliberately hit pedestrians in the central city of Changsha and killed eight.

In an attempt to address the public outrage over these incidents, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered local governments to work to prevent future such social revenge crimes, the Associated Press reported separately.

Meanwhile, as many Chinese netizens have expressed shock, fear, and concern over the incidents, the BBC reported, they have also expressed outrage over the government’s censorship of the posts on them.