China clears memorial to mass killing victims as government scrambles to respond

By David Kirton and Nicoco Chan

ZHUHAI, China (Reuters) -Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai removed wreaths, candles and bottles of Chinese alcohol, offerings laid at the scene of the deadliest mass killing in the country in a decade, as the government scrambled to respond and censor online outrage.

On Monday, a male driver angry at his divorce settlement, according to police, rammed his car into a crowd at a sports centre in the city of 2.5 million, killing 35 people and injuring 43. The government took almost a day to announce the death toll.

This prompted outrage on Chinese social media, where posts complaining about the government's slow response and raising questions about the mental health of a nation shaken by a recent spate of similar killings, were being quickly removed.

"The authorities hadn’t released any information - some colleagues mentioned it and I couldn’t believe it at first, but it was confirmed later," said a 50-year-old man who identified himself as Zheng who brought flowers to the site.

“It’s just a spontaneous feeling I had. Even though I don’t know them personally, I had family members who passed away in the past, so I understand that feeling,” said Zheng.

Delivery drivers on motor-bikes kept dropping off flowers at the site on Wednesday but the bouquets were being immediately removed by security personnel deployed there, sometimes even before a person was able to put them on the ground.

"A lot of people placed orders last night at midnight and had the flowers delivered to the stadium," said a nearby florist surnamed Qiu. "We usually get off work at 10 p.m. but yesterday was a special case because many customers wanted to order flowers, so we worked until almost 1 a.m.," said Qiu.

Some wreaths, captured on photographs by Reuters reporters, carried handwritten notes: "Strangers travel well. May there be no demons in heaven,” read one. On another: “May there be no thugs in heaven. Good will triumph over evil. Rest in peace.”

The attack happened as Zhuhai captured China's attention with the country's largest aviation exhibition, which every two years showcases the nation's civil and military aerospace achievements and where a new stealth jet fighter is on display this year.

While there is no indication that the two events are related, Chinese people often pick large national events with round-the-clock media coverage in an attempt to circumvent the tight censorship and highlight their grievances.

This was the second such incident to occur during the Zhuhai airshow. In 2008, at least four people were killed and 20 injured when a man drove a truck into a crowded schoolyard during the airshow. Police said that attacker had been seeking revenge over a traffic dispute.

'CONTROL THE NARRATIVE'

China's state broadcaster CCTV did not mention the attack in its 30-minute midday news bulletin. Instead, the programme led with President Xi Jinping's departure for the APEC summit in Peru and devoted a portion of the airtime to the airshow.

Other state media, such as China Daily's Chinese language website, also prominently displayed the news of Xi's Peru trip. The current affairs part of China Daily's website and the local area page did not mention the incident either.

The Weibo messaging site censored a hashtag that mentioned the death toll.

Media backed by local government on Tuesday night published a 1,000-word write-up of a local officials' meeting on the killing. It emphasized, among other things, the importance of "earnestly shouldering the political responsibility of 'promoting the development of one party and ensuring the safety of one party'" but it did not mention the details of the incident or the death toll.

Rose Luqiu, who researches Chinese censorship at Hong Kong's Baptist University, said the way information was curtailed in Zhuhai was consistent with other incidents in China that involve significant numbers of deaths.

"The censorship is normal because all these incidents are censored to try to control the narrative. The police statement will be the only official explanation, and they won't allow people to challenge or to discuss it," said Luqiu.

"I think the purpose of this is to reduce panic and … if you look at previous incidents like the stabbing of Japanese school children, they're also trying to reduce the copycat effect."

Luqiu was referring to an incident from September, when an assailant stabbed and ultimately killed a student at a Japanese school in southern China, marking a second such attack on Japanese citizens this year.

Even though there was no indication that Japanese citizens were involved in the Zhuhai attack, the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Tuesday released a warning asking Japanese nationals living in China to keep their voices down when speaking in Japanese and to avoid going out at night.

"As far as we know, there are no casualties that are foreign nationals in this case," China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a news briefing, adding that China would continue to protect the safety of foreigners.

Luqiu added that in China, local officials can sometimes be fired for incidents that cause mass deaths, even if it is clearly an individual act, so they tend to be reluctant to release any information to the public.

Guangdong's provincial governor Wang Weizhong on Wednesday visited the victims at the Zhuhai People's Hospital, Guangdong government said on its Wechat account. He urged local and provincial health departments to deliver "prompt and professional" treatment of the injured, and make every effort to save lives "no matter how slim the chance".

(Reporting by David Kirton, Nicoco Chan and Tingshu Wang in Zhuhai; Additional reporting by James Pomfret in Hong Kong, Joe Cash, Larissa Liao and Ethan Wang in Beijing; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Sharon Singleton and Alex Richardson)