Suspected killing by teens of 13-year-old classmate sparks debate in China

Chinese authorities in the Feixiang district near Handan city announced three suspects have been detained over the March 10 gruesome murder of a 13-year-old boy. Photo / AP

WARNING: This story discusses bullying and may be distressing.

In the last recorded moments before the 13-year-old boy’s death, surveillance cameras showed him sitting on a scooter, surrounded by three classmates. An hour later, his phone went dead, kicking off a frantic search by relatives.

The following day, police in a village in central China made a sickening discovery: the boy’s body, buried underneath a tarp in an abandoned vegetable greenhouse.

His three teenage classmates have been detained on suspicion of murdering the boy in a case that has set off outrage and frenzied debate in China over the young age of the suspects and soul-searching about bullying and social responsibility in the Chinese countryside.

Police in the Feixiang district of Handan city identified the boy only by his last name, Wang. In a statement on Sunday they said the boy had been killed on March 10 and that the suspects were detained the following day.

A police investigator told state broadcaster CCTV on Monday that the crime had been premeditated, with the suspects digging out the pit twice, once the day before and again on the day of the killing.

Wang’s relatives and their lawyer said in interviews with Chinese media and in posts on social media that the boy had long been a victim of bullying, and was forced to give money to one of his classmates before he was killed. They said police identified the suspected killers after reviewing the surveillance footage and questioning the classmates.

“He was beaten alive and his body was disfigured beyond recognition,” Wang’s father wrote on Douyin, a Chinese social media platform. “I hope the government will be fair, open and just, punish them severely, and that the killers will pay with their lives!”

The case will be a test of a change in the law in 2021 that lowered the age at which children could be charged with a crime from 14 to 12.

Wang’s father, aunt, and grandmother did not respond to requests for comment. A number for the principal of the boy’s school rang unanswered, as did numbers for relatives of two of the suspects.

The victim and the suspects are all under the age of 14. Media reports said they were “left-behind” children, a phrase used to describe kids in the countryside often cared for by grandparents because their parents work in faraway cities.

As details of the tragedy emerged last weekend, it renewed concern over the social and psychological welfare of such children, their exposure to violent content online and the ability of the country’s social services to care for them. Posts and videos from Wang’s relatives garnered millions of views and thousands of comments.

“The attention paid to the mental health of minors in the countryside is too little,” said one person commenting on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. “I think this sort of thing could happen again.”

Zhang Dongshuo, a defence lawyer in Beijing unaffiliated with the case, said that Wang’s death is the latest in a series of juvenile murder cases in China that have sparked debate on how old a child should be before being held responsible for a crime.

“Generally speaking, these kinds of cases involving minors are rare,” Zhang said. “But recently more and more of these cases have been reported by the media, and it’s been triggering discussion in Chinese society over revising the age of criminal responsibility.”

In 2019, a 13-year-old boy who confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering a 10-year-old girl avoided criminal charges because Chinese law at the time stipulated that only those over the age of 14 could be held criminally liable.

Two years later, the the age of criminal responsibility was lowered to 12, but the government mandated that prosecution only take place if it is approved by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s highest prosecuting authority.

Zhang added that the lack of parental guidance for “left behind” children has been a longstanding social issue, but that the question of how they should be raised has not been fully resolved.

“Many people think schools and the government should take responsibility for children’s education, but that means if the relevant government departments and schools don’t educate them effectively, then it’s highly likely this minor is left in an educational vacuum,” he said.

State media have given Wang’s death widespread coverage, though there are signs that Chinese authorities are keeping a close eye on public sentiment. On Sunday, the family’s lawyer, Zang Fanqing, was abruptly cut off on a live broadcast after saying he and Wang’s father were barred from seeing the boy’s body. The next day, Zang said on social media that they were allowed to see the body.

A public statement from police asked the public not to spread rumours to protect the victim’s privacy and avoid further harm to the boy’s family.

His family has signalled they intend to pursue criminal charges. In a video Wang’s father posted on Monday, he said the sight of his son’s body was “crueller than I imagined”.

“Your father isn’t scared, he is only upset and furious,” Wang’s father wrote, addressing his son. “Wait for your father to avenge you!”