A series of violent killings in China earlier this month generated widespread attention on social media and Chinese-language news sites around the world.
The brutal murders, which took place over 11 days, all involved attacks by Chinese peasants on village officials. Making the attacks more remarkable was that public reaction to the killers was generally sympathetic.
The first incident took place on May 1 in Xishe, a village of about 28,000 people in northern China’s province of Shanxi. Thirty-eight-year-old Xu Guoqiang killed the village head, his wife, and son in a brutal afternoon knife attack. Xu was apprehended three days later.
Another afternoon attack took place nine days later in Xili Village, in east China’s Shandong province. A high school English teacher—referred to in reports only by his surname, Jia—stormed the home of Liu Jijie, the village’s head and party boss. Jia killed Liu, his wife, who was also a local official, and their 15-year-old son before committing suicide….