A series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China began in March 2010. The spate of attacks left at least 90 dead and some 473 injured. As most cases had no known motive, analysts have blamed mental health problems caused by rapid social change for the rise in these kinds of mass murder and murder-suicide incidents.[1]
As the Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing was followed by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the United States hours later[2] [3] comparisons were drawn between the two. The difference in gun control laws between the two countries was used to explain the disparity in casualties of the school attacks by journalists and politicians, including U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler,[4] [5] and an article in the Associated Press noted that despite the different outcomes, an underlying commonality between the attacks was the increased frequency of school attacks because "attackers often seek out the vulnerable, hoping to amplify their outrage before they themselves often commit suicide".[6]
See main article: Nanping school massacre. On March 23, 2010, Zheng Minsheng (郑民生)[7] 41, murdered eight children with a knife in an elementary school in Nanping, Fujian province; The attack was widely reported in Chinese media (called 南平实验小学重大凶杀案), sparking fears of copycat crimes.[8] Following a quick trial, Zheng Minsheng was executed about one month later on April 28. Media reported a history of mental health issues, but police stated that Zheng had no history of mental illness, contradicting earlier reports. Zheng said that he performed the attack after being turned down by a girl and suffering "unfair treatment" from the girl's wealthy family.
On April 13, a mentally ill man went on a stabbing rampage at Xizhen Primary School in Xichang, southern Guangxi, killing an eight-year-old boy and an 80-year-old woman passerby. It was the second random attack on schoolchildren in the mainland in three weeks. Also injured were five people – two boys, aged seven and 12, a seven-year-old girl and a couple in their 30s. The knife-wielding suspect, Yang Jiaqin, aged 40, was detained.[9]
On April 28, just a few hours after the execution of Zheng Minsheng in neighboring Fujian Province,[10] in Leizhou,[11] Guangdong another knife-wielding man named Chen Kangbing, 33 (陈康炳)[12] at Hongfu Primary School wounded 16 students and a teacher. Chen Kangbing had been a teacher at a different primary school in Leizhou, but was on sick leave due to mental illness. He was sentenced to death by a court in Zhanjiang in June.[13]
On April 29 in Taixing, Jiangsu, unemployed 47-year-old Xu Yuyuan went to Zhongxin Kindergarten[14] and stabbed 28 students and two teachers after stabbing the security guard; most of the Taixing students were four years old.[15] The attack was the second in China in just two days.
On April 30, Wang Yonglai used a hammer to cause head injuries to preschool children in Weifang, Shandong, then used gasoline to commit suicide by self-immolation.
An attacker named Wu Huanming (吴环明), 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver at a kindergarten in Hanzhong, Shaanxi on May 12, 2010;[16] early reports were removed from the internet in China, for fear that mass coverage of such violence could provoke copycat attacks.[17] The attacker later committed suicide at his house; he was the landlord of the school, Shengshui Temple private kindergarten, and had been involved in an ongoing dispute with the school administrator about when the school would move out of the building.[18]
On May 18, 2010 at Hainan Institute of Science and Technology (海南科技职业学院), a vocational college in Haikou, Hainan, more than 10 men[19] charged into a dormitory wielding knives around 2:30 a.m.;[20] after attacking the security guard and disabling security cameras, nine students were injured, one seriously. The local men attacked the dorm in an act of revenge and retaliation against college students following conflict the previous day at an off-campus food stall in which four students were injured, for a total of 13.[21]
On August 4, 2010, 26-year-old Fang Jiantang (方建堂) slashed more than 20 children and staff with a 60 cm knife, killing three children and a teacher at a kindergarten in Zibo, Shandong province. Of the injured, three other children and four teachers were taken to the hospital. After being caught Fang confessed to the crime. There was no known motive.[22] Since the start of the year, a total of 27 people had died and at least 80 were injured in various knife attacks.
Eight children, between the ages of three and five,[23] were hurt in Minhang District, Shanghai when an employee at a child-care centre for migrant workers slashed the children with a box-cutter.[24] The woman had worked there for years, but was thought to have psychiatric problems.
In September 2011, a young girl and three adults taking their children to nursery school were killed in Gongyi,[25] Henan by 30-year-old Wang Hongbin with an axe.[26] Another child and an adult were seriously wounded but survived.[27] The suspect is a local farmer who is suspected of being mentally ill.[28]
On September 21, 2012, three children died and 13 more were injured after a suspected mental patient allegedly broke into a nursery in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and attacked students with a knife. The suspect, Wu Yechang, aged 25, was caught on-site by police officers, who rushed to the nursery after receiving emergency calls.[29]
On September 25, 2012, a 20-year-old man surnamed Zhang broke into a girls dormitory in the Henan Vocational and Technical College, killing three students and wounding another. He was later arrested.[30]
See main article: Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing.
On December 14, 2012, a 36-year-old villager in the village of Chenpeng, Henan Province, stabbed 23 children and an elderly woman at the village's primary school as children were arriving for classes.[31] The attacker was restrained at the school, and later arrested.[32] All of the victims survived and were treated at three hospitals, though some were reportedly seriously injured, with fingers or ears cut off, and had to be transferred to larger hospitals for specialized care.[33]
A knife-wielding attacker killed two relatives and then slashed 11 people, including six children, outside a school in China's commercial hub of Shanghai. The man, whose surname was given as Zang, killed his sister and his sister's mother-in-law at their home in a family dispute over money. Zang then attacked parents and children outside an elementary school in the suburban district of Fengxian just as classes were let out.[34]
Two boys died after they were beaten by a member of staff at a primary school in southern China. The boys, who attended a private school in Yulin City, in the Guangxi Zhuang region, died later in hospital.[35]
Two adults were killed outside Balijie Primary School, and 44 others were injured after a homemade explosive detonated. Most of the injured were schoolchildren. One of those killed is the bomber, who was riding his motorcycle during the explosion.[36] [37] [38]
A man armed with a meat cleaver slashed eight children on a playground. Eight students were injured; one was seriously injured and seven others sustained minor injuries. A 35-year-old man was arrested.[39] [40]
A man stabbed three children to death at a primary school in central China and then committed suicide by jumping off a building. The attacker, identified by his surname Chen, broke into Dongfang Primary School in Hubei province around 10:20 in the morning. Wielding a knife, the man stabbed eight students and a teacher before he took his own life.[41]
A man in southern China non-fatally stabbed 10 schoolchildren before killing himself. The incident took place in Haikou, the capital city of the southern island province of Hainan. The motive for the attack remains unclear.[42]
Four children were stabbed to death as they were walking to their school. A 56-year-old suspect is wanted.[43]
Around 11:40 a.m. 58-year-old Lei Mingyue entered an after-school care center in Hantai District and attacked students lining up for lunch with an axe. After wounding seven female students from Beiguan Primary School he fled the premises, injuring two passersby during his escape. He was later arrested by police and stated that he carried out the attack as revenge on society after he was arrested twice for theft.[44] [45]
A driver angry over the loss of overtime pay set fire to his school bus in the eastern city of Weihai, killing 13 people, including 11 children from China and South Korea. The driver bought gasoline, which he ignited while the bus was travelling through a tunnel in the coastal city that is home to many South Korean businesses. Police determined that the fire started on the floor of the bus next to the driver's seat, where the cap to a cigarette lighter and gasoline residue were found. All 13 people aboard the bus were killed, including the driver himself and a teacher.[46]
See main article: 2017 Xuzhou kindergarten bombing.
On June 15, 2017, a bombing at a kindergarten in Feng County, Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, east China, killed at least eight people and injured 65 others. The perpetrator, 22-year-old Xu Taoran, died in the blast. Subsequent investigation revealed that Xu was mentally ill and obsessed with death and destruction.[47] The blast occurred at the entrance of the kindergarten, while children were leaving school. Two people died on the spot, and five succumbed to injuries at the hospital. Nine remained in critical condition in the aftermath.[48] Due to the shattering bomb parts, over 60 people were injured and needed medical attention.
See main article: Mizhi County middle school stabbing. Nine people were killed in a stabbing outside a middle school in northwestern China. The attack was allegedly carried out by a former pupil seeking revenge for having been bullied. Another 12 people were injured resulting from the rampage outside the No. 3 Middle School in the rural area that took place as classes were being dismissed for the evening.[49] [50]
See main article: 2018 knife murders at Pubei Road, Shanghai.
On June 28, outside Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School, one of the best private elementary schools in the city, a man attacked three schoolboys and a mother with a kitchen knife, fatally wounding two boys and injuring the others. The attacker, 29, was caught by pedestrians at the scene. Unemployed, he arrived in Shanghai in early June but failed to find a job. To “take revenge on society,” he decided to commit the crime, the man told the police.[51]
A knife-wielding assailant injured 14 children at a kindergarten in the western Chinese city of Chongqing. The attacker, a 39-year-old woman, was taken into custody. No motive for the assault was immediately publicized.[52]
A 49-year-old man was arrested after attacking 20 children at a primary school in Beijing with a hammer. Three of the children suffered severe injuries.[53]
On the afternoon of March 14, 2019, a man attacked students near the Guanghuadao Primary School, 17 students were injured.[54]
An attacker killed eight students and injured two others at an elementary school in central China on the first day of the new semester. The attack occurred around 8 a.m. Monday in Chaoyangpo village of Enshi city in Hubei province. The suspect was a 40-year-old man surnamed Yu. How the children were attacked was not disclosed, and the motive for the attack was unclear. The suspect was released last June after serving his sentence for attempted murder.[55]
More than 50 people, almost all of them young children, were hospitalized in southwest China on Tuesday after a man broke into a kindergarten and sprayed them with a corrosive chemical as “revenge on society.” Fifty-one children and three teachers were injured in the attack in Kaiyuan, in Yunnan province. Two were seriously injured, but their injuries were not life-threatening.[56]
On June 4, 2020, 39 people (37 students and two adults) were injured in a knife attack at a primary school. The students suffered mild injuries; two adults suffered more severe injuries.[57]
See main article: Kaiyuan stabbing attack.
On December 27, 2020, seven people were killed and seven others injured during a mass stabbing attack outside a school in Kaiyuan, in the Liaoning province. As the school was closed at the time of the incident, no students or teachers were hurt. The victims were all passersby, mainly middle-aged or elderly women. The attacker then stabbed and wounded a policeman before being arrested.[58]
On April 29, 2021, a knife-wielding man broke into a school, killing two children and wounding 16 others. The mass stabbing occurred in Beiliu, a city in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. A man with the surname Zeng, aged 24, was apprehended by police. Authorities didn't confirm a motive for the attack, but Hong Kong news outlets, including Oriental Daily and Apple Daily, reported that the suspect was going through a divorce and his wife worked at the school.[59]
On August 3, 2022, three people were killed and six others wounded in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southeast China's Jiangxi province.[60] The suspect, identified as 48-year-old Liu Xiaohui, fled to a mountainous area in a neighboring county after the attack, and was arrested 12 hours later.[61]
At 5:00 p.m. on April 19, 2023, a mentally unstable student allegedly stabbed seven people at the Qingdao Campus of Shandong University of Science and Technology with a knife, killing one. He was subsequently arrested.[62]
On May 14, 2023, a sophomore of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China allegedly stabbed two of his neighbours to death and severely injured his mother by beating her into a coma. The following day, he went to the Tongzhou campus of his school, where he allegedly stabbed three people, including the vice-principal. It is suspected that the vice-principal died.[63]
On July 10, 2023, six people were killed and one wounded in a mass stabbing at a kindergarten in Lianjiang, Guangdong province. The suspect, a 25-year-old man with the surname Wu, was arrested by police.[64]
On May 20, 2024, a woman stabbed twelve people with a fruit knife at a primary school in Guixi, Jiangxi, killing two. The suspect, a 45-year-old woman surnamed Pan, was arrested at the scene.[65] [66]
Although the rate of school attacks in China increased dramatically in 2010, China had previously experienced similar incidents of attacks at schools, including:
On July 10, 1995, Dong Chi, armed with a double-barreled shotgun and garden shears, attacked staff and students at a kindergarten in Meihekou, killing a six-year-old girl and wounding 15 other students and a teacher. Dong was shot and killed by police.[67]
On April 1, 1996, Wang Xiangjun, who was described as a mental patient, broke into two schools in Dongkou County, Hunan, stabbing seven students to death and injuring four others.[68]
A teacher, an ex-soldier, stabbed two children to death and wounded 15 others at a primary school in Henan.[69]
See main article: Fanglin Village primary school explosion.
On March 6, 2001, a man named Li Chuicai allegedly broke into a third-grade classroom in Wanzai County, Jiangxi and ignited explosives, leveling the school and killing himself, 41 others, and injuring 27.[70] [71]
See main article: Huang Hu.
On November 24, 2002, Huang Hu placed rat poison in the table salt of a kindergarten in Wuchuan, Guangdong. Huang operated his own kindergarten that he had opened the previous month. His business failed quickly, and he blamed it on the kindergarten he targeted. 70 children and two teachers fell severely ill, though all of them survived. Huang was sentenced to death and executed on January 3, 2003.[72]
On November 26, 2002, a schizophrenic man named Shi Ruoqiu stabbed seven children at Shilong Elementary School in Huaiji County, Guangdong. Five of the children died from their injuries.[73]
On January 25, 2003, a teacher named Chen Peiquan fatally stabbed three students and a teacher at Yang Gan Middle School in Suixi County, Guangdong. Another three were injured. Chen had a history of mental illness and spent the previous six years in and out of mental hospitals. The motive was unknown.[74]
On August 4, 2004, 15 students and three teachers were stabbed in a kindergarten at Peking University in Beijing. One student died in the hospital. The perpetrator, Xu Heping, was a temporary worker at the kindergarten and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He had been held at a mental hospital for four months in 1999 due to his illness, and was described as introverted and depressed.[75]
On September 11, 2004, 28 children were slashed after 41-year-old Yang Guozhu broke into a daycare in Suzhou. He was stopped by police as he was attempting to light gasoline and explosives in the building. Yang's parents took their own lives by drinking poison in 2002. He claimed the attacks were a release of his frustration over family issues.[76] [77]
On September 20, 2004, a man stabbed 25 students at No. 1 Experimental Primary School in Ju County, Shandong, before taking a female student hostage and being subdued by authorities.[78]
On September 30, 2004, four children were killed and 16 others injured in a mass stabbing at Guangyi Centre School in Hunan. The perpetrator, 28-year-old Liu Hongwen, was a teacher at the school with mental health issues. During his trial he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found not guilty by reason of insanity.[79] [80]
On October 21, 2004, Fu Hegong broke into a kindergarten in Beijing with the intent to rob it. After being confronted by a teacher, he raped and smothered her to death with a quilt. After a five-year-old boy was awakened by the noise, he beat the boy to death. Fu had previously committed three unrelated murders and was executed for his crimes in 2005.[81] [82]
On November 25, 2004, 21-year-old Yan Yanming entered Ruzhou No. 2 High School and fatally stabbed nine boys as they slept in their dormitory. He later attempted suicide and was turned over to authorities by his mother. He was executed on January 18, 2005.[83]
On December 3, 2004, 12 students were stabbed by 30-year-old Liu Zhigang at Central Primary School in Mingcheng Town, Panshi, Jilin. He scaled the school's fence, attacked students with a kitchen knife, and slashed his own throat. He and his victims all survived. After the attack Liu was placed in a mental hospital due to his severe schizophrenia.[84]
On April 2, 2005, a man surnamed Meng broke into a classroom at Nansan Middle School in Zhanjiang and stabbed eight students with a kitchen knife. After a standoff with police, he attempted suicide by jumping off the building, but survived. Meng was a carpenter who had been recently fired from his job.[85]
On October 12, 2005, 33-year-old Liu Shibing, a former mental patient, opened fire with six homemade guns at Niutoushan Primary School in Liudong Town, Guangde, Anhui. Eighteen people were wounded (sixteen students and two adults). Shibing fled the scene.[86] [87]
See main article: Shiguan kindergarten attack.
On May 8, 2006, 18-year-old Bai Ningyang entered a classroom of a kindergarten in Shiguan Village, Gongyi, Henan. He forced the teacher and children to the back of the room at knifepoint, locked the door and poured gasoline on the floor, setting the room alight before escaping. 12 died and five others were seriously injured. According to locals, the teacher of the class had previously rejected his romantic advances. Bai was sentenced to death in December 2007.[88]
On May 24, 2006, Yang Xinlong murdered a neighbor in Luoying, Henan, and proceeded to take 19 elementary school students hostage, killing one before being subdued by police.[89]
On June 13, 2007, a man surnamed Su broke into Chiling Primary School in Longtang, Guangdong, and killed a nine-year-old boy with a kitchen knife and seriously wounded three others.
On June 20, 2007, four students were injured, one critically, when a young man broke into a school in Fuzhou and began attacking them with a knife.[90]
In July 2007, a mentally ill man attacked 18 children with a wrench at a school in Guangdong. He entered a classroom and began striking the children on their heads. He fled the scene on a motorcycle and attempted suicide.[91]
On February 25, 2008, Chen Wenzhen broke into Leizhou No. 2 Middle School in Leizhou, Guangzhou and fatally stabbed two students and injured four others, after which he stabbed himself in the abdomen and jumped from the fifth floor, killing himself. The perpetrator was described as a "mentally disturbed" young man.[92]
On March 2, 2009, 40-year-old Xu Ximei hacked two preschoolers to death with a kitchen knife at a primary school in Mazhan, Guangdong. A grandmother and three others at the school were also injured.
Since the recent spate of attacks, many parents are now worried about their children's safety in schools and have since asked local officials and school governors to step up security at the schools. The education ministry has formed an emergency panel to tackle the violence, and some local police authorities have distributed such instruments as steel pitchforks and pepper spray to security guards in schools. However, not all schools increased their security because of a lack of funds to hire extra security. The state media has also been keeping news of these attacks quiet by deleting forum entries on the internet and releasing few facts on the incident for fear of copycat crimes and mass panic. In May 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao commented on the school attacks and said that the "social tensions" in China must be addressed. He also said society was changing rapidly and that subsequent changes in policy were needed. Why these attacks have been specifically targeted at young school children is not entirely explicable, however.[93]
Following the Chenpeng school attack, the Chinese government began posting security guards in schools throughout the country. It was planned that all schools would have a security guard by 2013.[94]