China has executed a man who killed 35 people by plowing his car into crowds at a sports center in November, in the country’s deadliest known attack against the public in a decade, state media reported Monday.
Fan Weiqiu, 62, was executed just over three weeks after he was sentenced to death by a court in the southern city of Zhuhai, where he carried out the attack.
China has been gripped by a surge of sudden episodes of violence targeting random members of the public – including children – in recent months as economic growth stutters, unnerving a public long accustomed to low violent crime rates and ubiquitous surveillance.
Chinese officials have ramped up security measures and called for swift and severe punishment for offenders in a bid to deter future attacks.
On Monday, another man was also executed in the eastern city of Wuxi for killing eight people in a stabbing rampage on a college campus in November, state media reported.
Xu Jiajin, 21, a recent graduate of the vocational college, was motivated by “failing (an) exam, not receiving a graduation certificate, and dissatisfaction with internship compensation,” police said in a statement at the time.
The knife attack in Wuxi took place just days after the car rampage in Zhuhai shocked the nation.
Fan, the Zuhai attacker, drove his car into the crowd on November 11, in a rage caused by his failed marriage and what he saw as an unfair divorce settlement, the court concluded in its sentence.
The attacker rammed his small off-road vehicle across the grounds of Zhuhai Sports Center, hitting dozens of people exercising around a track.
When police tried to intercept his escape, officers found Fan in the car trying to injure himself with a knife and took him to hospital, police said in a previous statement.
The court said during sentencing that it found Fan’s “motives extremely vile, the nature of his crime extremely heinous, the method particularly cruel, and the consequences particularly severe, posing great harm to society,” state media reported at the time.
The death toll of the rampage is the highest China has seen since 2014, when a string of attacks rocked the far western region of Xinjiang. The country has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world, partly due to its strict gun controls and powerful mass surveillance.
The hit-and-run prompted Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who described the attack as “extremely vicious,” to call for severe punishment, state broadcaster CCTV previously reported.
News of the two executions were met with overwhelming support on Chinese social media. On Weibo, an X-like platform, related hashtags drew millions of views and became top trending topics.
“How very satisfying!” said a top comment, as other users echoed similar sentiments on the social media platform.
China does not provide transparent information on the total number of executions, but the country is believed to be “the world’s top executioner” with thousands of people executed and sentenced to death each year, according to human rights group Amnesty International.