Beijing attempts to whitewash deadly crash

President Xi Jinping called the attack ‘extremely vicious’ and urged the ‘strict’ punishment of the perpetrator.

The memorial outside the Zhuhai Sports Centre that was shut down. Picture: AFP

The Chinese authorities closed down a spontaneous memorial to the victims of an apparent mass murder in the latest sign of the government’s discomfort over recent violent incidents.

Thirty-five people were killed and 43 injured when a man drove an SUV into crowds of people exercising at an outdoor sports centre in Zhuhai on Monday evening. It took 24 hours for the authorities to reveal the death toll and many references to the incident have been removed from Chinese social media.

People converged on the site on Tuesday to leave wreaths of flowers, candles and bottles of alcohol at the scene but these were removed by security guards.

The suppression of public discussion may be motivated by the wish to avoid prompting copycat attacks but also the instinct to quell displays of mass mourning to prevent them from developing into expressions of public anger towards the authorities.

A BBC television team reporting from the scene was shoved and harangued by a man in civilian clothes who ordered them to go away without presenting any identification.

Videos made soon after the attack show people lying motionless on the ground or nursing injuries. According to the state media, the attack was carried out by a 63-year old man identified only by his family name, Fan.

A witness surnamed Liu told the Caixin news website that he “struck all around, injuring ­people in various sections of the sports field’s circular track”.

Caixin reported that the victims included middle-aged and elderly people as well as teen­agers and children.

Fan was arrested at the scene after an apparent attempt to kill himself with a knife, according to a statement by Zhuhai auth­orities. “He is currently in a coma as a result of the serious self-­inflicted injuries to his neck and other parts of his body, and police are unable to question him,” the statement said.

The first statement said “the incident was allegedly triggered by Fan’s dissatisfaction with the split of financial assets in his divorce” but this speculation was later removed.

President Xi Jinping called the attack “extremely vicious” and urged the “strict” punishment of the perpetrator.

The attack is all the more embarrassing for having taken place on the eve of an important international event, the Zhuhai air show, at which China revealed its new J-35A stealth fighter jet.

It also follows random attacks on strangers by disturbed and disaffected individuals, characterised by state media as efforts to take “revenge on society”.

In June, a 55-year-old man attacked and wounded four American university teachers in a park in Jilin. In Suzhou the following month, a man injured a Japanese mother and child and killed a Chinese woman who intervened in a knife attack on an inter­national school bus, an incident reportedly motivated by ­“ex­treme nationalism”. A 10-year-old Japanese boy died in a separate attack in September by a 44-year-old man. Last month, there were two knife attacks on primary schools.

The Chinese foreign ministry said no victims of the latest attack were foreign.

THE TIMES