Security has been tightened in front of schools and the government is increasing calls for surveillance by local authorities after a series of attacks that worry China. Since the beginning of the year there have been at least ten attacks, with knives and often directed at young students leaving school or at vehicles that ran into a crowd, three of them between Monday, November 11 and Tuesday, November 19. Schools were already calling security officers, but on Tuesday morning, November 26, up to four could be seen at the school gates, with shields and sticks to repel the would-be attacker, and even in one case a barrier against a car
The secretary of the very powerful Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Wenqing, former intelligence chief and highest ranking in President Xi Jinping’s security apparatus, gathered his subordinates on Friday, November 22. “We must strengthen the management of key places and important events, patrol and control the society, and strictly prevent any public security incidents.”he warned. The Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court, party secretaries at the level of provinces like Hunan, all, in turn, launched the mobilization.
The country often sees the safety of its streets as proof of the cohesion of Chinese society, and propaganda often highlights the frequency of assault rifle attacks on American universities, illustrating, he says, the flaws of the first world power. But recent attacks raise both concern and doubt.
The silence of the authorities
On June 11, in Jilin, in the far northeast, a 55-year-old man stabbed four American professors from an Iowa university who had come as part of an exchange program and a Chinese tourist who was trying to protect them. Twenty-four hours passed until the authorities reported it and the images quickly disappeared from social networks. The police explained to the victims that the man was unemployed and had acted because one of them had pushed him. One of the victims, back in the United States, David Zabner, explains that today he knows nothing more about the motives for the attack.
A few days later, on June 24, in Suzhou (east), 1,500 kilometers away, a Japanese schoolboy, his mother and an employee of his school bus were stabbed. On September 18, another Japanese child was murdered with a knife in Shenzhen (southeast). On the 30th of the same month, a 37-year-old man killed three people and injured fifteen others in a Walmart supermarket in Shanghai; The authorities explained that he had financial problems.
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