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Eight people were killed and 17 injured in a stabbing attack at a vocational college in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi late on Saturday, the country’s second mass-casualty event in a week.
Police said in a statement that they had detained a suspect, a 21-year-old male student surnamed Xu, at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing, a smaller city within Wuxi, in eastern Jiangsu province.
China was shaken earlier this week by its worst mass killing in a decade when a driver in the southern city of Zhuhai rammed his vehicle into a crowded exercise area, killing 35 people and injuring dozens more.
Authorities on Saturday charged the driver, a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan, state media said.
According to the Yixing police statement, Xu confessed to carrying out the attack after he was detained at the scene. It attributed his motivation to frustration with failing his exams and dissatisfaction with his salary at his internship.
Analysts have said that a spate of violent attacks in recent months could point to aggravated social tensions as the China grapples with slowing economic growth that has led to job losses and dented household incomes.
“The thing that seems to stand out is that people are resorting to such mass violence because they seem to feel that they don’t have much to lose,” said Steve Tsang, head of the Soas China Institute at the University of London.
In May, two people were killed and 10 injured in an attack at an elementary school in south-eastern Jiangxi province. The same month, an assailant killed two people and injured 21 at a hospital in Yunnan.
In June, a deadly attack targeted a school bus full of Japanese children in Suzhou, while a separate rampage killed three people in a metro station in Shanghai.
In July, a 64-year-old man killed three people with a knife and injured one in Shenyang, in north-eastern Liaoning province, while in September, a man stabbed a boy walking to a Japanese school in Shenzhen, in southern China. The boy died the next day in hospital.
In Wuxi on Saturday, police said they were investigating and authorities were working to treat the victims.
But information about many of the attacks has been sparse, with internet discussions of the events censored and footage removed from internet platforms.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping released a rare personal statement addressing the Zhuhai attack, which analysts said reflected authorities’ sensitivity about social stability and desire to strengthen public controls. Xi called on officials across the country on Tuesday to improve risk prevention “at-source”.
Chinese policymakers have also unveiled a series of stimulus packages in an effort to support the country’s flagging property sector and spur economic growth, including a $1.4tn fiscal package this month aimed at restructuring local governments’ off balance sheet debt. But economists have called for more direct measures to alleviate household burdens and restore consumer and investor confidence.
“The problem here is that this is still being seen primarily in the light of a social and political stability challenge, so a security-focused response is likely,” said Tsang.
“What will be needed is to change the environment [to] make people feel that there is a better future for them.”
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of weekday working hours.
