Beijing orders investigations into local disputes after spate of deadly attacks

Beijing is ramping up scrutiny of “common” disputes such as those involving marriages and property, the justice ministry said, as the public reels from a recent string of deadly attacks.

China has witnessed a spate of violent incidents in recent months – from mass stabbings to car rammings – a rare development for a country with a proud reputation for public security.

The issue has prompted soul-searching about the state of society, with some despairing about why an increasing number of people seem willing to “take revenge” on random civilians.

The justice ministry has urged local mediators to carry out “in-depth investigations” into disputes involving family, neighbours, land and wages.

Such close attention is necessary to resolve disputes at the early stage, the ministry said on Saturday.

Officials also stressed the importance of maintaining “safety and stability” in prisons.

“It is necessary to increase efforts to resettle and assist released prisoners … to effectively prevent and reduce re-offending,” the ministry statement said.

Earlier this month, a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 more when he rammed his car into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai – the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.

Preliminary investigations suggested the attack had been “triggered by (his) dissatisfaction with the division of property following his divorce”, according to local police.

Days later, eight people were killed and 17 others wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China.

Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school, who was meant to graduate this year but had failed his exams.

Officials from China’s Supreme People’s Court also met Saturday and said they would “severely punish major vicious crimes in accordance with the law and maintain social stability”.

And Beijing’s top public prosecutor vowed “zero tolerance for crimes that infringe students’ rights and interests and endanger campus safety” at a meeting on Tuesday.

It also pledged to “make every effort to safeguard the safety of campuses and students”, according to a post on its official WeChat account.

On Tuesday, a car crashed near a primary school in central China and injured multiple children.

Many initial videos from that incident appeared to have been removed from China’s tightly controlled social media platforms, echoing other mass casualty events.

In the Zhuhai attack, it took police almost 24 hours to release the death toll, and videos of the attack later appeared to be scrubbed from social media.