China has executed two men responsible for two deadly attacks within a week last November.
Fan Weiqiu, 62, killed at least 35 people and injured dozens more after he drove his car into people exercising outside a stadium in Zhuhai, in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Chinese soil in a decade.
Days later, Xu Jiajin, 21, killed eight people and injured 17 others in a stabbing at his university in the eastern city of Wuxi.
Authorities said Fan was driven by “dissatisfaction” over how his property had been divided after his divorce, while Xu carried out his attack after “failing to obtain his diploma due to poor exam results”.
Fan was detained at the scene on November 11, where he was found with self-inflicted wounds.
In December, he was found guilty of “endangering public safety”, with the court describing his motive as “extremely disgusting” and “the methods used” as “particularly cruel”.
His execution on Monday comes less than a month after a court sentenced him to death.
In the case of Xu, police said he confessed to his crime “without hesitation” on November 16. He was sentenced to death on 17 December, with the trial hearing that the circumstances surrounding his crime were “particularly bad” and “extremely serious”.
China has been grappling with a recent wave of public violence, with many attackers believed to have been motivated by a desire to “get revenge on society” – where perpetrators target strangers over their personal grievances.
The number of such attacks across China reached 19 in 2024.
Within days of the attacks in Zhuhai and Wuxi, a man drove into a group of children and parents outside a primary school in Changde city, injuring 30 of them.
Authorities said the man, Huang Wen, wanted to vent his anger after dealing with investment losses and family disputes.
Huang was sentenced to a suspended death sentence last month – it can be converted to life imprisonment if he does not commit another crime within the next two years.
Analysts previously told the BBC that series of mass killings raised questions about how people in China have dealt with various sources of stress, such as the country’s sluggish economy.
Some of them point out that the outlets for venting frustrations have also narrowed or been closed off altogether over the years – resulting in people being hard-pressed to find ways to deal with their feelings.
Taken together, these factors suggest that the lid is tightening on Chinese society, creating a pressure cooker-like situation.
“Tensions seem to be building and it doesn’t look like there’s any way it’s going to ease in the near future,” said George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University’s China Centre.