Why Are People So Stupid, In Concern To Solving The High Price Housing Crisis in China, and Around the World?

By: Mr. Dominic Jermano

American-China/Foreign Affairs...

The inaugural 1000 Miglia Experience China begins in Guangzhou, showcasing historic cars and celebrating cultural ties between Italy and China.

Watch: BBC China correspondent ordered to stop filming and pushed at car attack scene

Bank runs are bad. They're bad enough to bring down governments. There's been a slow-motion bank run in rural China for several months, and people are starting to get concerned that the "contagion" could spread.

In the anatomy of an economic crisis, a bank run is the point of no return.

Bank runs occur when people scramble to withdraw cash from banks in fear of collapse. In the worst cases, banks' liquid cash reserves are exhausted, not everyone gets their money and the bank defaults. ...

In recent years it has become clear the Chinese people are losing faith in their financial institutions. There's been anger over harsh COVID lockdowns in Shanghai recently, while the collapse of China Evergrande saw rare public demonstrations as residents faced the prospect of losing their life savings used as deposits for housing. ...

Multiple sources contacted by Asia Markets, have confirmed deposits at the following six banks have been frozen since mid-April.

• Yuzhou Xinminsheng Village Bank (located in Xuchang City, Henan Province)
• Zhecheng Huanghuai Bank (City of Shangqui, Henan Province)
• Shangcai Huimin Rural Bank (Zhumadian City, Henan Province)
• New Oriental Village Bank (City of Kaifeng, Henan Province)
• Huaihe River Village Bank (Bengbu City, Anhui Province)
• Yixian County Village Bank (Huangshan City, Anhui Province)

It's understood the banks with branches across the Henan and Anhui Provinces successively issued announcements in April, stating they would suspend online banking and mobile banking services due to a system upgrade.

At the same time, clients reported their electronic deposits in online accounts, mobile apps and third-party platforms could not be withdrawn.

This led to depositors rushing to local bank branches, only to be told they were unable to withdraw funds.

It looks like the bank failures are due to fraud and corruption -- bank managers simply stole the money. Hopefully this corruption isn't widespread and the problem can be contained.

The announcements should not be a surprise. Donald Trump said he'd do things differently this time. And yet they still prompt a double take.

If you watch China, IL on [adult swim], the brainchild of cartoonist Brad Neely, it's a pretty sure bet that you love it, because it's pretty much all or nothing when it comes to this series about the worst college...

A pékin aussi on s’apprête à fêter Noël comme il se doit… avec ou sans le sourire. Hesiem, Pékin (Chine)

The 20th ALUMINIUM CHINA will take place from July 9-11, 2025, at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC). Organized by RX China, the event will feature over 600 diverse exhibitors showcasing the entire aluminium industry chain. With the theme "Aspirational·Limitless·Unique: 20 Years of Excellence," next year's exhibition will span over 60,000 square meters and expects to bring together [PR.com]

I've added clickable maps for a few of the neighborhoods. Each map shows the restaurants in that area. There are...

Michael Prosser, a prominent figure in the study of intercultural communication, and distinguished professor of Shanghai International Studies University explains in this article that a major obstacle for Americans to learn about the real China, and the causes of the misunderstandings about China, is the lack of personal experience of the country.

China's $700+ billion current account surplus is calling out for application to something besides U.S. bonds, so the Chinese state-controlled offshore oil company is bidding to buy Unocal. The $18.5 billion unsolicited takeover proposal is $1.5 billion more than...

General Motors has apparently figured out how to build the right car for the right market - in this case, $5,000 minivans that get 43 miles to the gallon in city driving. The minivans, which GM builds in a...

CFMoto's engineers have had their hands full. Its booth at EICMA had quite a few new releases on display, but the star of the show was a brand new, state-of-the-art 1,000cc V4 and a 'Master of Speed' superbike concept signalling the company's WSBK intentions.

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Category: Motorcycles, Transport

Tags: CFMoto, V4, Concept Motorcycles, Superbike, EICMA 2024, WSBK

The Express Tribune analyses the videos, pictures shared on social media since the neighbours have come face-to-face

1. 'Taking revenge on society': Deadly Zhuhai car attack sparks questions in China  BBC.com
2. Man Upset About Divorce Allegedly Rams Car into Crowd, Killing 35: Reports  PEOPLE
3. Video: 35 killed in mass hit-and-run in Zhuhai, China  CNN
4. Driver rams his car into crowd in China, killing 35. Police say he was upset about his divorce  The Associated Press
5. Zhuhai car attack: China clears memorial as government scrambles to respond  Reuters

Reporters Without Borders reports today that Chinese authorities have stepped up Internet censorship to include blogging, closing two sites hosting blogs, Blogbus.com and and Blogcn.com.

While the government may not be enthusiastic over offering RSS news feeds, the Chinese people themselves are embracing Internet communications with gusto and particularly RSS news syndication in the form of blogging.

According to China's biggest blogging service provider blogcn.com, the number of subscribers has soared from 10,000 in June last year, to more than 500,000 now.

A couple of years ago technology writer Fang Xingdong at his site blogchina.com coined the Chinese term bo ke to mean blogger. He encouraged his readers to try blogging by registering on blogger.com. “Blogging is a true revolution,” he wrote. “One needs zero technology training, zero institution and zero cost to become a blogger.”

The number of Chinese online has quintupled over the past four years. Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China, a telecommunications and technology consulting firm based in Beijing, said in an email message to the to Tom Zeller, Jr. of the New York Times, "China's rulers are bent on putting communications, mobile phones, Internet access and the new growth area, broadband, into as many hands as possible."

"China is already the largest mobile communications subscriber market in the world," reports the Internet Herald Tribune, "with more than 320 million subscribers." Internet users, who numbered fewer than 17 million in 2000, are now estimated to be somewhere near 90 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre, the government's clearinghouse for Internet statistics. China is second only to the United States in the number of people online."

Beijing has an uneven record of late in allowing citizens access to Google English News headlines giving Chinese searchers access to uncensored news from all over the world. According to Reporters Without Borders, China is censoring Google News to force Internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports.

Similarly, the government is also ambivalent about how allowing its citizens to freely blog. Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley runs the China Digital News blog and is monitoring the pulse of blogging in China.

Qiang reports that by January 2003, China had about 2000 bloggers when, without warning, the Chinese government blocked all access to blogspot.com, the server that hosts all blogs registered on blogger.com. According to Qiang:

[The] crackdown in 2003 closed websites and internet cafes and saw the arrest of dozens of online commentators.

Yet this is not proving enough to stifle the pluck and ingenuity of China’s bloggers. The rise of the blog phenomenon was made possible by blog-hosting services. Just as companies like Yahoo host email accounts, sites like blogger.com, based in the United States, host blogs.....

Blog services are now sprouting all over China. By the end of October 2004, China had more than 45 large blog-hosting services. A Google search for bo ke will return more than two million results, from blogs for football fans to blogs for Christians.

Sources:

• Zeller, T. Jr. Beijing embraces the Internet while it clamps down on online dissent, International Herald Tribune, December 6, 2004.


• China View. "Blog" the word of the year, December 5, 2004.


• NewScientist.com. Special report: The "blog" revolution sweeps across China, November 24, 2004.


• Interfax-China. China censors Google News, (November 30 2004, updated December 1).

In one of those science fiction becomes fact moments, an enterprising project in Shenzhen, China has seen the first public demonstration of a manned electric flying saucer. Hey ho, UFO no more. The craft, which was shown flying around a tech park, was developed with the help of Northwestern Polytechnical University and manufactured by Shenzen UFO Flying Saucer Technology. The video of the event shows a vehicle which looks decidedly unsteady in flight, even with six independent ducts with dual...

The post World’s First Manned Electric Flying Saucer Lifts Off In China appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

EMO: Sensational Deepfake Tech From China Shows Just How Insane Things Are Right Now in the world of deepfake and A.I.

The post EMO: Sensational Deepfake Tech From China Shows Just How Insane Things Are Right Now appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called "Trichinas" (meaning "hairy"). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.

He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called "Trichinas" (meaning "hairy"). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.

He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called "Trichinas" (meaning "hairy"). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.

He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called "Trichinas" (meaning "hairy"). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.

He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called "Trichinas" (meaning "hairy"). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.

Appoints "President of Sales and Business Development".

Ronnie O'Sullivan suffers a 6-4 third-round defeat by Pang Junxu as the seven-time world champion is knocked out of the International Championship in Nanjing.

The vote risks sparking a trade war as the EU looks to protect its own car makers.

This research delves into the wealth effect of shareholders from bidding firms created by mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in China and India, two of the world's most populous nations. The study reveals that on average, M&A deals create wealth for shareholders of the acquiring firms, as determined by abnormal percentage returns in a five-day event window. Regarding the further classification of acquiring firms based on industry, the abnormal percentage returns vary in different sectors in both countries. In China, shareholders benefit in seven out of ten industries, while in India, they gain in five out of nine industries. Moreover, the stock markets' responses vary depending on the type of M&A in each country. Cross-industry M&A deals in China generate higher gains for shareholders than within-industry deals, whereas, in India, within-industry M&A deals generate higher gains.

Aim/Purpose: This study examines the influence of ambidextrous knowledge sharing in industrial clusters on innovation performance from the perspective of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities. Background: The key factor to improving innovation performance in an enterprise is to share knowledge with other enterprises in the same cluster and use dynamic capabilities to absorb, integrate, and create knowledge. However, the relationships among these concepts remain unclear. Based on the dynamic capability theory, this study empirically reveals how enterprises drive innovation performance through knowledge sharing. Methodology: Survey data from 238 cluster enterprises were used in this study. The sample was collected from industrial clusters in China’s Fujian province that belong to the automobile, optoelectronic, and microwave communications industries. Through structural equation modeling, this study assessed the relationships among ambidextrous knowledge sharing, dynamic capabilities, and innovation performance. Contribution: This study contributes to the burgeoning literature on knowledge management in China, an important emerging economy. It also enriches the exploration of innovation performance in the cluster context and expands research on the dynamic mechanism from a knowledge perspective. Findings: Significant relationships are found between ambidextrous knowledge sharing and innovation performance. First, ambidextrous knowledge sharing positively influences the innovation performance of cluster enterprises. Further, knowledge absorption and knowledge generation capabilities play a mediating role in this relationship, which confirms that dynamic capabilities are a partial mediator in the relationship between ambidextrous knowledge sharing and innovation performance. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results highlight the crucial role of knowledge management in contributing to cluster innovation and management practices. They indicate that cluster enterprises should consider the importance of knowledge sharing and dynamic capabilities for improving innovation performance and establish a multi-agent knowledge sharing platform. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers could further explore the role of other mediating variables (e.g., organizational agility, industry growth) as well as moderating variables (e.g., environmental uncertainty, learning orientation). Impact on Society: This study provides a reference for enterprises in industrial clusters to use knowledge-based capabilities to enhance their competitive advantage. Future Research: Future research could collect data from various countries and regions to test the research model and conduct a comparative analysis of industrial clusters.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of the front/back-office structure affecting new service development (NSD) performance and examine the role of knowledge transfer in the relationship between front/back-office structure and NSD. Background: The separation of front and back-office has become the prevailing trend of the organizational transformation of modern service enterprises in the digital era. Yet, the influence of front and back-office separation dealing with new service development has not been widely researched. Methodology: Building on the internal social capital perspective, a multivariate regression analysis was conducted to investigate the impact of front/back-office structure on the NSD performance through knowledge transfer as an intermediate variable. The data was collected through a survey questionnaire from 198 project-level officers in the commercial banking industry of China. Contribution: This study advances the understanding of front/back-office structure’s influence mechanism on new service development activity. It reveals that knowledge transfer plays a critical role in bridging the impact of front and back-office separation to NSD performance under the trend of digitalization of service organizations. Findings: This study verified the positive effects of front/back-office social capital on NSD performance. Moreover, knowledge transfer predicted the variation in NSD performance and fully mediated the effect of front/back-office social capital on NSD performance. Recommendations for Practitioners: Service organizations should optimize knowledge transfer by promoting the social capital between front and back-office to overcome the negative effect organizational separation brings to NSD. Service and other organizations could explore developing an internal social network management platform, by which the internal social network could be visualized and dynamically managed. Recommendation for Researchers: The introduction of information and communications technology not only divides the organization into front and back-office, but also reduces the face-to-face customer contact. The impacts of new forms of customer contact to new service development and knowledge transfer between customer and service organizations call for further research. Along with the digital servitization, some manufacturing organizations also separate front and back-offices. The current model can be applied and assessed further in manufacturing and other service sectors. Impact on Society: The conclusion of this study guides us to pay attention to the construction of social capital inside organizations with front/back-office structure and implicates introducing and developing sociotechnical theory in front/back-office issue undergoing technological revolution. Future Research: As this study is based on the retail banking industry, similar studies are called upon in other service sectors to identify differences and draw more general conclusions. In addition, as the front and back-offices are being replaced increasingly by information technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), it is necessary to advance the research on front/back-office research with a new theoretical perspective, such as sociotechnical theory.

Aim/Purpose: The study attempts to analyse the influences of knowledge management capacity on company performance and supply chain practices. It also examines whether supply chain practices significantly and positively impact company performance. Background: Knowledge management capacity is an essential tactical resource that enables the integration and coordination among supply chain stakeholders, but research examining the link between knowledge management capacity and supply chain practices and their impacts on company performance remains scarce. Methodology: The study uses correlation analysis and factor analysis to confirm the theoretical framework’s validity and structural equation modelling to test hypotheses. The data are obtained from 115 halal food firms in China (with a response rate of 82.7%). Contribution: This study’s findings contribute to the Social Capital Theory by presenting the impacts of different supply chain practices on company performance. The findings also suggest the impact of intangible resources on enhancing company performance, contributing to the Resource-based View Theory. These results are a crucial contribution to both academicians and corporate managers working in the Halal food industry. Managers can apply these findings to discover and adopt knowledge management capacity with practical anticipation that these concepts will align with their company strategies. Also, the research motivates managers to concentrate their knowledge management on enhancing companies’ supply chain practices to achieve improved company performance. Findings: This study is an initial effort that provides empirical evidence regarding the relationships among supply chain, knowledge management, and company performance from the perspective of China’s halal food industry. The results prove that knowledge management capacity is the supply chains’ primary success determinant and influencer. Besides, knowledge management capacity positively influences company performance, and supply chain practices directly influence company performance. Recommendations for Practitioners: Managers can apply these study findings to determine and increase knowledge management capacity with practical anticipation that these concepts will align with their company strategies. Also, the research motivates managers to concentrate their knowledge management on enhancing companies’ supply chain practices to achieve improved company performance. Recommendation for Researchers: The study presents a new theoretical framework and empirical evidence for surveying halal food businesses in China. Impact on Society: These results are a significant contribution to the research field and industry focusing on halal foods. Future Research: First, this research focuses only on halal food businesses in China; thus, it is essential to re-examine the hypothesized relations between the constructs in other Chinese business segments and regions. Next, the effect of variables and practices on the theorized framework should be taken into account and examined in other industries and nations.

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework that incorporates personal characteristics, social context, and technological features as significant factors that influence the intention of small-city users in China to use mobile health. Background: Mobile health has become an integral part of China’s health management system innovation, the transformation of the health service model, and a necessary government measure for promoting health service parity. However, mobile health has not yet been widely adopted in small cities in China. Methodology: The study utilized a quantitative approach whereby web-based questionnaires were used to collect data from 319 potential users in China using China’s health management system. The data was analyzed using the PLS-SEM (the partial least squares-structural equation modeling) approach. Contribution: This study integrates the protection motivation theory (PMT), which compensates for the limitations of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology theory (UTAUT) and is a re-examination of PMT and UTAUT in a small city context in China. Findings: The findings indicate that attitude and perceived vulnerability in the personal characteristic factors, social influence and facilitating conditions in the social context factors, and performance expectancy in the technological feature factors influence users’ intention to use mobile health in small cities in China. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study provides feasible recommendations for mobile health service providers, medical institutions, and government agencies based on the empirical results. Recommendation for Researchers: As for health behavior, researchers should fully explain the intention of mobile health use in terms of holism and health behavior theory. Impact on Society: This study aims to increase users’ intention to use mobile health in small cities in China and to maximize the social value of mobile health. Future Research: Future research should concentrate on the actual usage behavior of users and simultaneously conduct a series of longitudinal studies, including studies on continued usage behavior, abandonment behavior, and abandoned-and-used behavior.

Aim/Purpose: Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model, the current study investigated social commerce functions as an innovative retailing technological support by selecting the three most appropriate features for the Chinese online shopping environment with respective value co-creation intentions. Background: Social commerce is the customers’ online shopping touchpoint in the latest retail era, which serves as a corporate technological tool to extend specific customer services. Although social commerce is a relatively novel platform, limited theoretical attention was provided to determine retailers’ approaches in employing relevant functions to improve consumer experience and value co-creation. Methodology: A questionnaire was distributed to Chinese customers, with 408 valid questionnaires being returned and analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Contribution: The current study investigated the new retail concept and value co-creation from the consumer’s perspective by developing a theoretical model encompassing new retail traits and consumer value, which contributed to an alternative theoretical understanding of value creation, marketing, and consumer behaviour in the new retail business model. Findings: The results demonstrated that value co-creation intention was determined by customer experience, hedonic experience, and trust. Simultaneously, the three factors were significantly influenced by interactivity, personalisation, and sociability features. Specifically, customers’ perceptions of the new retail idea and the consumer co-creation value were examined. Resultantly, this study constructed a model bridging new retail characteristics with consumer value. Recommendations for Practitioners: Nonetheless, past new retail management practice studies mainly focused on superficial happiness in the process of human-computer interaction, which engendered a computer system design solely satisfying consumers’ sensory stimulation and experience while neglecting consumers’ hidden value demands. As such, a shift from the subjective perspective to the realisation perspective is required to express and further understand the actual meaning and depth of consumer happiness. Recommendation for Researchers: New retailers could incorporate social characteristics on social commerce platforms to improve the effectiveness of marketing strategies while increasing user trust to generate higher profitability. Impact on Society: The new retail enterprises should prioritise consumers’ acquisition of happiness meaning and deep experience through self-realisation, cognitive improvement, identity identification, and other aspects of consumer experiences and purchase processes. By accurately revealing and matching consumers’ fundamental perspectives, new retailers could continuously satisfy consumer requirements in optimally obtaining happiness. Future Research: Future comparative studies could be conducted on diverse companies within the same industry for comprehensive findings. Moreover, other underlying factors with significant influences, such as social convenience, group cognitive ability, individual family environment, and other external stimuli were not included in the present study examinations.

Aim/Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between dual network embedding, dual entrepreneurial bricolage, and knowledge-creation performance. Background: The importance of new ventures for innovation and economic growth has been fully endorsed. Establishing incubation organizations to help new startups overcome constraints and dilemmas has become the consensus of various countries. In particular, the number of Chinese makerspaces has rapidly increased. Startups in the makerspaces form a loosely coupled dual network to cooperate and share resources, especially knowledge. Methodology: By convenience sampling, 400 startups in the makerspaces in Fujian Province, China were selected for the questionnaire survey study. In total, 307 valid responses were collected, yielding a response rate of 76.8%. The survey data were analyzed for hypothesis testing, using the PL-SEM technique with the AMOS20.0 software. Contribution: At the theoretical level, this research supplements the exploration of the influencing factors of the entrepreneurial bricolage of startups at the network level. It deepens the research on the internal mechanism of the dual network embeddedness affecting the knowledge-creation performance. In practice, it provides a theoretical basis and management inspiration for startups in makerspaces to overcome the inherent disadvantage of being too small and weak to explore innovative paths. Findings: First, relational embedding of startups in makerspaces directly affects knowledge-creation performance. Second, dual entrepreneurial bricolage plays a mediating role in diversity. Selective entrepreneurial bricolage plays a partial mediating role between relationship embedding and knowledge-creation performance. Parallel entrepreneurial bricolage plays a complete intermediary role between structural embedding and knowledge-creation performance. Dual entrepreneurial bricolage plays a complete intermediary role between knowledge embedding and knowledge-creation performance. Recommendations for Practitioners: Enterprises in the makerspaces should make dynamic adjustments to the network embedded state and dual entrepreneurial bricolage to improve knowledge-creation performance. When startups conduct selective entrepreneurship bricolage, they should strengthen relational and knowledge embeddedness to improve their relationship strength and tacit knowledge acquisition. When startups conduct parallel entrepreneurship bricolage, structural and knowledge embedding should be strengthened to improve the position of enterprises in the network to acquire diversified knowledge to explore and discover new business opportunities and project resources. Recommendation for Researchers: The heterogeneity of industries and regions may impact the dual network embedding mechanism of startups. Researchers can choose a wider range of regions and industries for sampling. Impact on Society: This study provides a theoretical basis and management inspiration for startups to overcome the inherent disadvantage of being too small and weak to explore innovative paths. It provides a basis to support startups in unleashing innovation vitality and achieving healthy growth. Future Research: Previous studies have shown that network relationships and bricolage behavior have a certain relationship with the enterprise life cycle. Future research can adopt a longitudinal research design across time points, which will increase the explanatory power of research conclusions.

This study investigates Anglo expatriate managers learning, knowledge acquisition, and adjustment to the host culture when working within Anglo multi-national companies operating in China. A structural equation model based on data from 121 expatriate managers reveal that Anglo managers adjust more effectively when their learning styles are congruent with the demands of the host culture. Their levels of accumulated managerial tacit knowledge and adaptive flexibility were also associated with their learning styles which in turn led to more effective adjustment to the host culture. Implications for theory, global manager development, and expatriate management are provided.

Female corporate leadership has drawn increasing attention from academia and practitioners. We contribute to the literature by examining the impact of CEO succession with gender change—i.e., a male CEO succeeded by a female or vice versa. We propose that due to gender differences in executive leadership positions, CEO succession with gender change may amplify the disruption of the CEO succession process and thus adversely affect post-succession firm performance and increase the likelihood of successor early departure. Using data from 3,320 CEO successions in companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 1997 to 2010, we find evidence to support this argument. We also find that the negative (positive) impact of male-to-female succession on firm performance (the likelihood of successor early departure) may be weakened by positive organizational attitudes toward female leadership as indicated by the presence of other female leaders on the firm's board of directors and/or top management team, and the successor's inside origin.

Many online are raising questions about a recent spate of public violence, as officials continue to censor discussion.

ZHUHAI: A hit-and-run attack at a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai killed 35 people and severely injured 43, local police said on Tuesday.

The incident happened at 7:48 p.m. (1148 GMT) on Monday, when a small off-road vehicle was driven into a large group of people exercising outside the sports centre.

Zhuhai police said in a statement that the suspect, a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan, was being treated at a hospital after hurting himself with a knife in his car.

A Reuters reporter at the scene on Tuesday evening said people had begun leaving wreaths, counting 18 laid in front of a sign for the Zhuhai People’s Fitness Square. Others lit candles and incense. The police presence was low.

A video, verified by Reuters, of the scene on Monday following the attack had shown at least 20 people lying on the ground. Cries of “terrorist” could be heard as ambulances arrived to take the injured to hospital.

Hundreds of rescue personnel from Zhuhai city and Guangdong province were deployed to provide emergency treatment, and more than 300 healthcare workers from five hospitals worked around the clock to save lives, state media Beijing Daily reported.

Fan was apprehended by police at the scene after attempting to flee, police said, adding that he had self-harmed using a knife, causing severe neck injuries.

Police said their preliminary investigation suggested the incident was triggered by Fan’s discontent following a divorce.

President Xi Jinping, cited by Chinese state television CCTV, ordered all-out efforts to treat the injured and demanded severe punishment for the perpetrator. The central government has dispatched a team to provide guidance on handling of the case, CCTV said.

The attack sparked thousands of angry comments on Chinese social media, many of which were quickly censored after the police reported the high death toll.

“Zhuhai is one of the most relaxed, peaceful, and liveable cities in the country, and this tragic incident has left a painful memory that will be hard to erase for many years to come,“ one user of the Weibo platform said.

Violent crime is rare in China due to tight security and strict gun laws. However, a rise in reports of knife attacks in large cities has drawn public attention to safety in public spaces.

In October, a knife attack in Beijing left five people wounded outside one of the city’s top primary schools. A month earlier, a Japanese student was fatally stabbed outside his school in Shenzhen.

Zhuhai is hosting China’s biggest annual air show this week where a new stealth jet fighter will be on display for the first time.