The Nanping stabbing tragedy in Fujian Province shocked the whole nation. Killer Zheng Minsheng was executed on the morning of April 28. On the same day around 3 p.m., a similar attack happened at the Leicheng First Primary School in Leizhou City, Guangdong Province: A knife-wielding man ran into the school, injured 18 children and one teacher. Just one day later, tragedy replayed at a nursery school in Taixing, Jiangsu Province: This time, 32 people were injured, including 29 children, two teachers and one security guard. A day later, a farmer from Weifang Shangdong Province broke into a primary school and injuring five students, before burning himself to death.
At first glance, it’s as if it were in America instead of China. Take a look: On Jan. 4, 2010, a gunman in black opened fire with a shotgun in a Las Vegas federal courthouse, killing a court security guard and wounding a deputy U.S. marshal. On Jan. 18, a gunman killed eight people and even shot down a police helicopter in the U.S. state of Virginia. On Feb. 12, a female teacher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville shot and killed three colleagues after she was told she would not be promoted to associate professor. On Feb. 23, a school shooting occurred at a middle school near Colorado’s capital city, Denver. Two students were shot and wounded. On March 4, one person was killed and three others were injured in the Pentagon shooting. Astoundingly, the gun used in the shooting came from the Tennessee police and court system. On March 9, a shooting occurred at Ohio State University campus, in which one was killed and two were wounded. The two shootings on March 30 in Washington D.C. killed four people and injured nine. Four people were killed in a Los Angeles restaurant shooting on April 4. The shooting at a medical center in Tennessee killed two people and wounded two on April 19.
There are many differences between China and America, such as the social* system, culture, religion (China is an atheistic country), race and stages of [economic] development. But why the frequency of similar school tragedies in these two very different countries? While Europe and America share the same social system, culture, race and religion, and are also at very similar developmental stages, why are school shootings rare in Europe?
As for this year’s shootings in the U.S., some analysts believe that they are related to the current economic crisis, an outward manifestation of social problems. However, that does not explain why such tragedies occur very frequently each year.
While some analysts think that the school tragedies in China are caused by the social system, it is a national character problem. But why are America and Europe totally opposite while they have the same or similar social systems and national character? If there is a problem with the Chinese social system, and we take lessons from the U.S. as a warning, then what other system can China choose? Some analysts also believe that China’s school tragedies are related to the period of transition China is experiencing. But why is the U.S. still unable to prevent these sorts of tragedies from happening again, even though it has already entered the postmodern period?
Through comparison and elimination, the common reason for school tragedies in China and the U.S. is this: Both China and the U.S. are countries with a lot of cut-throat competition and their social security systems** have yet to be improved. China is a late-developing country; fierce competition is natural and inevitable. In addition, China does not have sufficient financial resources to establish a social security system like that of Europe, which took several hundred years to perfect. America is a young country of immigrants. It is dynamic and it encourages competition, but it has the most imperfect social security system among developed countries. However, intense competition will inevitably lead to polarization between the rich and the poor as well as psychological imbalance. China and the U.S. have one more thing in common: In both countries, the Gini coefficient — an indicator of the wealth gap — is beyond the internationally accepted alarm level of 0.4. This is the reason why school tragedies happened in China this year and in the U.S. over a number of years.
However, China and the U.S. still have differences. Because China’s social transformation has been too quick, there has been no time to adjust and resolve conflicts between tradition and modernity as there was in the West. In fact, the transition from agricultural society to industrial society in China took only 30 years. In the West, it took at least a century to more than several hundred years. The same thing happened in political evolution. It took one and a half centuries from the French Revolution to “one man, one vote” in general elections. It also took one and a half centuries for workers to have the legal right to strike. However, taking the achievements made by Western developed countries as a model, in reality, is it possible for China to slow down?
When looking for another reason for these tragedies, we can find some clues by comparing America and Europe. Compared to Europe, America has less welfare and more freedom. Individual Americans have the right to own guns. Enterprises may express their opinions freely via political contributions, and thus exert decisive influence upon politics and produce national policies and regulations beneficial to themselves. Less welfare will obviously cause further polarization. Meanwhile America places no effective restrictions on each of these freedoms. Guns are widespread in the United States. Thus, tragedies occur repeatedly. Even U.S. presidents were not spared (for example, Reagan and Kennedy).
Just as in America, China’s frequent school tragedies are also related to the constant expansion of freedom. This time, we can say the price was paid for freedom of the press (the “7.5” Xinjiang Riots were caused by a rumor on the internet). In 30 years of reform and opening up, Chinese society is becoming increasingly free and diverse. However, with any advancement of society, there is no “free lunch.” It’s the same for freedom of the press. Since the Nanping tragedy, experts have worried that similar tragedies would follow. Unfortunately, they have been right. Social progress can not go backward, but the cost should be able to bear the psychological consequences. Additionally, when we have freedom, we need self-discipline and must have the capacity to control our personal freedom (for instance, we should be able to at least see through rumors, not believe them). Obviously, China is not ready yet.
China is ever more Americanized. But this is only a warning. As we energetically embrace modernization, shouldn’t we also take the perspective of reflection on China’s own modernization?
But in any case, when it comes to problem solving, I am more optimistic about China than I am about America. Because whenever these incidents happen, all of China becomes enraged and reflects on these issues (regardless of whether the direction of this reflection is correct). In contrast, no matter how many similar incidents have happened in America, the whole society has become numb to them and has lost the ability of reflection. I am afraid this is the real reason why, nowadays, shootings are becoming more and more serious in the United States.
*Editor’s Note: “Social” in this sense includes economic and political systems.
**Editor’s Note: “Social security” refers to a social safety net, not a nationalized retirement system.
While I agree you that some of the outbursts of frustration that cause what appear to be random attacks on the innocent are a direct result of individuals feeling abandoned by their societies, I also feel you have a skewed view of America & it’s problems with violence.
Most of the shootings & murders we experience here in the states are gang-related, they are nothing more than “turf wars” between groups of criminals that have decided the “gangster” life-style is glamorous or profitable, and our media seems to irresponsibly encourage this belief.
School shootings are quite rare here…whenever it is discussed in the media as a theme, they have to go back over 30 years of history to give even a handful of examples, but they always present each example as though it just happened yesterday, and present them as though they were a string of ongoing incidents, which they are not.
In fact, the murder rate in general has been declining in the U.S.since 1993. There is no real consensus as to why, but it is interesting to note that Canada saw the same decrease, and the only verifiable factor that matched the possible factors in the U.S. was a decline in the number of youths as a percentage of the population. Personally & unscientifically, I conclude that the young, without the mitigating presence of adults in their groups, tend to violate social norms more easily and more frequently…but that is just my opinion.
As for attacks on schoolchildren, I see a number of differences between the historical attacks in the U.S. versus the recent spate of attacks in China.
The Chinese attacks were all incidences where a disenfranchised adult attacked elementary school children…in the U.S., for the most part, the incidences were teen-age children attacking schoolmates…the only exception I can recall was the Patrick Purdy attack, where an adult attacked elementary school children in Cleveland about 21 years ago, with an illegally modified AK-47, killing five, and wounding 29. All of the fatally shot victims and many of the wounded were Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants. Purdy then took his own life by shooting himself in the head with a pistol. Purdy had carved the words “freedom”, “victory”, “Earth-man”, and “Hezbollah” on his assault rifle (ironically, a Chinese import), and his flak jacket read “PLO”, “Libya”, and “death to the Great Satin”.
Although the U.S. media tries to indicate gun ownership as the primary cause of Purdy’s violence, the truth is, he had a long history of criminal activity & mental illness, and was not even allowed to legally purchase a firearm…unfortunately, no legal method of doing a background check for mental illness exists here due to medical record privacy laws, and in each case where Purdy had committed a felony, the judges had reduced his crimes to misdemeanors in plea agreements, so he was not flagged for a felony, regardless of his actual criminal background.
In conclusion, I see no real connection in the school violence China is currently undergoing, and the incidences in America’s history. In fact, many of us in the States are confused by what has recently happened in China, and are trying to see a causal connection in the incidents as well, and cannot perceive any easily-defined pattern, with the exception of the obvious “copy-cat” syndrome, which we see here quite often, as well.
Hopefully, these occurrences are over, and will be seen in the future as an aberration, unusual & tragic, but not at all a normal expectation of societal factors.