Mass killings test China’s crime narrative

Beijing claims public safety is under control, but some horrific tragedies show the weaknesses

• By Karishma Vaswani / Bloomberg Opinion

Control is the mantra with which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governs its people, and during its presidency, Xi Jinping (習近平) has restored its central role in society. Unprecedented levels of surveillance and a “neighbor watching your neighbor” system are some of the methods used to keep order among the 1.4 billion population. However, a series of random acts of violence challenge the “party knows best” narrative.

The CCP is paramount in China and is embedded in every organ of government. His legitimacy after 75 years in power depends on continued economic growth. However, the recent recession has hit millions of young job seekers hard and affected the workforce. There is no way to know whether economic motives were behind the most dramatic of several recent tragedies that have shocked the nation, but comments on Chinese social media have linked the violence to concerns about social stability.

On November 11, a 62-year-old man drove his four-wheel drive into a crowd of pedestrians outside a sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai, killing 35 people and injuring dozens. It was the country’s deadliest known act of civil violence under Xi’s rule.

The attacker struck after becoming unhappy with the division of assets in his divorce settlement, reports say. He was later arrested on suspicion of endangering public safety by dangerous means.

A stabbing attack late last week that left eight people dead was apparently the result of a personal grudge: a 21-year-old’s unhappiness with his school over a graduation issue. Both incidents cast an unwanted spotlight on the government’s security record. Known random acts of violence are uncommon in China, but are reported more frequently and in greater detail by the state and on social media.

Official distributors took more than a day to report the Zhuhai incident and did not explain the reasons for the delay. Very quickly, however, any hint of what happened was removed, both online and offline. This level of censorship is par for the course for authoritarian regimes, but it is also a reflection of the deep fear the party has of any mass expression of emotion that could threaten its grip on power.

“They understand that if people come together and unite, their pain can be a powerful mobilizing force,” said Freedom House’s China, Hong Kong and Taiwan research director Yaqiu Wang. “They are tremendously afraid of any kind of class action that might be directed at them.”

In the wake of the car killings, Xi ordered officials to further strengthen security networks to “protect people’s lives and social stability.”

This argument is often used in the crackdown in Xinjiang province, where an estimated one million ethnic Uyghur Muslims have been locked up in detention centers. However, the CCP is not only increasing its control over what it considers troublesome hot spots. There are more CCTV surveillance cameras in Chinese cities than anywhere else in the world. Digital authoritarianism has meant that everything from facial data and DNA to voiceprints and even iris scans are collected and stored in gigantic databases in the name of improving public safety.

Official statistics show that the level of crime is falling. (Warning: This data is used to strengthen control.) Even some independent data points to the perception that China’s law and order standards are among the best in the world. There are obvious political points to be made. Officials often warn their citizens about mass casualty events and gun violence in the US, touting their own system of government as superior in keeping people safe. However, this success has come at a great personal cost: individual freedom.

Authoritarian regimes use exaggerated levels of control as a way to justify their grip on power. We keep you safe, and in return you give us ownership of every aspect of your life, says the unspoken promise. That deal in China has worked as long as the CCP continues to provide clear evidence that living standards are improving. When that starts to break down, people become increasingly dissatisfied with their leaders and would complain.

Some brave citizens are protesting.

The China Dissent Monitor, a database that assesses the number of demonstrations each year, has documented more than three dozen types of dissent. These range from physical in-person protests to those expressed through art, non-cooperation, cyber dissent, and litigious petitions or lawsuits. Many have economic problems, such as problems with property and jobs. Such independent windows into the party’s opaque world challenge the narrative that citizens are satisfied with their government. The citizens of China are not so different from the rest of us. Eliminating problems is not a long-term solution.

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian politics, with a special focus on China. She was previously the BBC’s lead presenter for Asia and has worked for the BBC in Asia and South Asia for two decades.