Recently, in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, a tragic incident occurred where a car rammed into a crowd, resulting in 35 fatalities and 43 injuries, according to the Zhuhai police. However, online discussions have revealed discrepancies in the police reports, with vital information about the driver involved in the initial report being later omitted in the subsequent report.
Following the incident, Huang Kunming, the Secretary of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, held a meeting to convey instructions from Xi Jinping and instructed the province to focus on maintaining stability. Authorities have initiated measures to stabilize the situation among local residents, including guiding public opinion on social media to prevent linking the incident to “social revenge,” instead shifting the narrative to one involving “foreign forces.”
On Tuesday, Zhuhai Municipal Public Security Bureau released a report stating that on November 11th around 7 pm, a 62-year-old man named Fan drove a small off-road vehicle through a checkpoint and forcefully entered the city sports center, where he collided with residents exercising on the internal roads.
The report mentioned that Fan self-harmed with a knife in the car, resulting in severe injuries to his neck and other parts of his body, causing him to lose consciousness. He is currently receiving medical treatment in the hospital and is temporarily unavailable for questioning by the police.
Many netizens noted that Zhuhai Municipal Public Security Bureau had issued two different police reports, with the initial version mentioning, “According to the investigation, in recent years, Fan has been involved in disputes over the division of property with his ex-wife, which led to civil lawsuits filed in grassroots and intermediate courts. Fan appealed the court decisions due to dissatisfaction with the judgments.”
In the initial report, Fan’s actions were attributed to his discontent with the rulings of the two levels of Chinese courts, which led to him “retaliating against society.”
The swift classification by Zhuhai police of this “highly malignant case” as solely arising from Fan’s dissatisfaction with the property division after his divorce has stirred controversy across Chinese social media platforms.
An article published on NetEase titled “Brief Discussion on Five Issues in the Official Statement” pointed out several concerns with the official statement regarding the extreme violent behavior of the male suspect being triggered by dissatisfaction with the property division post-divorce. The concerns include oversimplifying the multifaceted nature of the crime, reinforcing harmful stereotypes, indirectly blaming the legal process post-divorce, potentially stigmatizing individuals with divorce experience, and the need to assess the criminal act independently from civil disputes.
In the aftermath of the car ramming incident in Zhuhai, Huang Kunming convened a meeting to convey Xi Jinping’s instructions and mobilized the entire province for stability maintenance efforts.
According to online disclosures, authorities have begun stability maintenance measures among local residents, including guiding public opinion on social media to prevent associating the incident with “social revenge” and instead framing it as related to “foreign forces.”
Some netizens expressed concerns about the suppression of discussions regarding the Zhuhai incident, highlighting fears of voices being silenced.
It is worth noting that as of now, there have been a total of four news articles related to Zhuhai on the hot search list on Weibo. While some reports pertain to Xi Jinping’s directives regarding the case, three articles are linked to the “Zhuhai Air Show,” and any grassroots revelations concerning the Zhuhai car ramming incident have been censored on the internet.
Guangzhou City, which is also part of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone like Zhuhai, experienced a deliberate car ramming incident involving a BMW wherein official reports indicated six fatalities and 29 injuries last January. The driver, Wen Qingyun, was sentenced to death in the first trial in April, being under 23 years old at the time of the incident.
Information related to the deliberate car ramming case in Guangzhou faced censorship by the Chinese authorities. The incident was initially labeled as a “traffic accident” in the reports, and numerous videos and images from the scene were swiftly deleted overnight, triggering public anger as Sina Weibo temporarily blocked related topics that evening.