The Deacon's Bench
A man who was told by officials they couldn’t register his fourth child because he didn’t pay a penalty for breaking China’s family planning laws stabbed to death two government workers and injured four others, state media and an official said.
Footage of police trying to subdue the man outside a family planning office in southern China’s Guangxi region while he still brandished a machete was widely available on Chinese news websites and shared on social media Wednesday.
The incident this week is one of a string of grievances against symbols of authority in China that have turned violent in recent months. It also illustrates how disliked China’s family planning limits are, more than 30 years after their introduction limited most urban couples to one child and rural families to two.
Many comments on China’s Twitter-like sites voiced sympathy for the man and their opposition to the one-child policy, with some calling on the government to get rid of it.
A family planning official said Wednesday that a man and a woman at the office died in the attack and four other workers were injured, including a woman who had her right hand cut off. The official from the Family Planning Commission of Fangchenggang city said the suspect was certified mentally disabled. As is common with Chinese officials, she gave only her surname, Li.
Footage broadcast on Guangxi TV showed police wearing helmets using long metal bars to bring a man with a machete resisting them under control. Authorities said the suspect had been detained.
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