In November, China suffered the deadliest mass murder in the past decade. Seventy days later, on Monday, China executed the perpetrator, along with another killer responsible for a subsequent attack.
The speed of the verdict and punishment was applauded by Chinese netizens but drew criticism from legal analysts who argue that the killers' speedy executions will fail to prevent future crime.
Fan Weiqiu, 62, drove his car into crowds of people around Zhuhai Stadium in Guangdong province, killing 35 and injuring 43.
At his trial on December 27, Fan stated that he was motivated by his dissatisfaction with his divorce settlement. The court delivered his death sentence that same day, calling his motivations "extremely vile, [and] the nature of the crime extremely egregious."
Messages of support for Fan's execution were posted on Weibo. One user, named Dentist Wu Bin, commented that the criminal's death was "satisfying to everyone."
Another user from Hong Kong, called A Girl's Runaway Dream, wrote: "I support the verdict! Don't let these bad people remain to ring in the [lunar] new year. I hope the dead rest in peace, justice will never be late!"
Fat Brother Yang Li from Jiangsu echoed his fellow commenters, posting: "This is to be done quickly, seriously and severely. Close the case while it is still fresh in people's minds. To both give an explanation to the people, and also to effectively deter criminals."
Still, a small number of netizens expressed skepticism of the death penalty. Weibo user Shumu Yangshenwo in Hainan province posted: "When will it be possible for China to abolish the death penalty as a form of torture?"
Xu Jiajin, the other criminal executed on Monday, was convicted for the deaths of eight people and the injuries of 17 others at his alma mater, a technical school in Wuxi. The 21-year-old returned to get revenge after failing his final exams and not receiving his graduation certificate.
Online communities circulated his suicide note in which Xu wrote, "I hope my death will push labor laws forward. Don't mistake me as a doormat, but some scores must always be settled."
Xu's execution followed a mere 66 days after his crime and sentencing. The turnaround of under three months from crime to punishment in the two cases has led some legal analysts to question the legitimacy of China's judicial system.
Ignatius Lee, a political and legal blogger with more than 79,000 followers on X, told VOA that the executions represent a "serious regression of the judicial system" in China. Even with conclusive evidence, the speed at which the trial and execution were conducted reveals the lack of error-correction procedures within the judiciary.
"Outside of satisfying the public's desire for revenge, this has no judicial merit," Lee said.
All public knowledge of the criminals and their motivations comes from police reports, which in a way “puts a gag on their mouths.”
The lack of transparency surrounding the trials and their verdicts, Lee said, makes it hard for the public to learn anything from the cases and to take measures to prevent their recurrence.
To Lee, the most common causes of such revenge crimes are legal injustice and failed petitions to government offices. The petition system, which allows ordinary Chinese citizens to express grievances to county governments, has a very low success rate and has led to instability, as long wait times force petitioners to go to extremes to express their dissatisfaction.
Wu Shaoping, a former Beijing human rights lawyer now living in New York, views these two murder cases as representative of the Chinese judiciary's failure to address root problems and prevent violence.
"In these two cases, the CCP is acting typically in that it has not disclosed [the motives] to the outside world, nor has it allowed the public to discuss them. It still wants to cover it up so that, because there is no way for people to explore this issue in depth, the root causes of the social problems cannot be found, and to find a cure [to prevent such crime]," Wu said.
China was considering reforms to the death penalty prior to President Xi Jinping's administration. Such reforms, which have not been readdressed under Xi's tenure, included transferring review power of death penalty verdicts to China's highest court to ensure that verdicts are fair, Wu said.
Wu argues that the motives of these two murderers and others before them stem from social or economic grievances. Discussing and addressing social issues, however, is a "off-limits zone to the Chinese Communist Party," he says, as party officials fear that addressing larger issues might undermine their rule.
Kevin Slaten, who manages Freedom House's China Dissent Monitor, said that the two murder cases underscored the legal system's political utility to China.
"From the CCP's perspective, these cases needed to progress quickly for two reasons. Slaten told VOA.
"First, to make the public believe that the government is promptly handling public security issues. Second, by closing these cases as earlier as possible, it seeks to more quickly end public discussion of the context behind their motives, which involves social problems in China, including the economic slowdown.”
China's legal system is marked by two extremes, Slaten added.
On one end, detained human rights activists have to wait for months and sometimes years before being brought to trial. On the other hand, Fan and Xu were taken into court immediately, with executions following not even three months after their crimes, he said.
VOA's Katherine Michaelson contributed to this report.
