China’s Deadliest Car Attack Shakes Trust in Xi’s Safety Record
中国最严重的汽车袭击事件动摇了人们对习近平安全记录的信任

China’s deadliest known act of civilian violence since President Xi Jinping rolled out a sprawling surveillance system to secure his nation killed 35 and called into question the Communist Party’s safety record.
这是自习近平主席推出庞大的监控系统以确保国家安全以来，中国已知最致命的平民暴力事件，造成 35 人死亡，并引发对共产党安全记录的质疑。

A 62-year-old man surnamed Fan rammed his small four-wheel drive into a crowd of pedestrians outside a downtown sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai just before 8 p.m. Monday. State media only reported on the attack Tuesday evening, without explaining the delay.
周一晚上 8 点左右，一名 62 岁的范姓男子在南部城市珠海市中心的一个体育中心外，将他的小型四轮驱动车撞向了一群行人。官方媒体仅在周二晚间报道了此次袭击事件，但没有解释为何延误。

Dozens more people — many middle-aged “speed walkers” who gather at the venue — were rushed to hospital, where they were still receiving treatment. Authorities claimed the attacker had struck after becoming disgruntled over the division of assets in his divorce settlement.
还有数十人，其中许多是聚集在会场的中年“速行者”，被紧急送往医院，目前仍在接受治疗。当局声称，袭击者对离婚协议中的资产分割感到不满，因此发动了袭击。

Among the witnesses was a 54-year-old woman who was exercising by the stadium as the killing spree unfolded, but said she fled after her friend’s husband called yelling that a car had started crazily hitting people nearby. The realization was sinking in she could’ve been one of the dead, said the woman who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive topic.
目击者中有一名 54 岁的妇女，屠杀发生时她正在体育场旁锻炼身体，但她说，在她朋友的丈夫打电话大喊一辆车开始疯狂撞向附近的人后，她逃离了现场。这位因讨论敏感话题而要求匿名的女士说，她意识到自己可能就是死者之一。

The rampage was the latest in a spate of violent attacks this year that have put scrutiny on the government’s handling of both security and economic issues. Under the ruling party’s unsaid social contract, China’s population exchanges some freedoms in exchange for greater prosperity and safety. Social media users have connected a recent flurry of stabbings to growing economic strains after a real estate crisis wiped out billions of dollars in household wealth.
此次暴力袭击是今年一系列暴力袭击事件中的最新一起，这些袭击事件使人们对政府处理安全和经济问题的方式进行审查。根据执政党不言而喻的社会契约，中国民众用一些自由来换取更大的繁荣和安全。社交媒体用户将最近发生的一系列刺伤事件与房地产危机摧毁了数十亿美元的家庭财富后日益加剧的经济压力联系起来。

“If extreme events keep happening, they’re no longer isolated incidents,” one user wrote on China’s X-like Weibo. “The media shouldn’t stay silent, and the authorities shouldn’t only focus on stability. We need to know if there’s anything wrong with the society.”
“如果极端事件不断发生，它们就不再是孤立事件，”一位用户在中国类似X的微博上写道。 “媒体不应该保持沉默，当局也不应该只关注稳定。我们需要知道社会是否出了问题。”

Residents waited in long queues until 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning to donate blood for the injured, according to several residents who asked not to be named. Videos and messages spread fast among locals after the incident, even as a nationwide blackout remained until late Tuesday, after an annual air show opened in the southern city.
据几位不愿透露姓名的居民透露，周二早上，居民们排着长队等待为伤者献血，直到凌晨 4 点。事件发生后，视频和信息在当地人中迅速传播，尽管全国范围内的停电一直持续到周二晚，一年一度的航空展在南部城市开幕后。

The fatality toll from Monday’s incident is China’s largest documented car attack, and deadliest since a string of terrorism strikes in the remote Xinjiang region in 2014, including one in Yarkant county where 37 civilians were killed.
周一事件造成的死亡人数是中国有记录的最大规模的汽车袭击事件，也是自2014年偏远的新疆地区发生一系列恐怖袭击以来最严重的一次，其中包括叶尔羌县发生的一起恐怖袭击事件，造成37名平民死亡。

China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong has been building a high-tech surveillance state with the aim of achieving unprecedented control over what his population does and says. This week’s attack shows the limits even of such sweeping controls, at a fraught moment in Chinese society as it bears the pain of a property crash.
自毛泽东以来中国最有权势的领导人一直在建立一个高科技监控国家，目的是对其人民的言行实现前所未有的控制。本周的袭击事件表明，在中国社会正承受着房地产崩盘的痛苦时刻，即使是如此全面的控制也存在局限性。

“China’s economic slowdown will inevitably chip away at its political system’s legitimacy, which is ultimately anchored on its promise of delivering economic growth,” said Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australian National University.
“中国经济放缓将不可避免地削弱其政治制度的合法性，而政治制度的合法性最终取决于其实现经济增长的承诺，”澳大利亚国立大学政治学家宋文迪表示。

Political Legitimacy 政治合法性

The nation’s vast censorship machine swung into gear after the attack. That seemingly gave top leaders in Beijing — who haven’t yet publicly visited the site — time to ready their responses.
袭击发生后，国家庞大的审查机器开始运转。这似乎让尚未公开访问该网站的北京高层领导人有时间准备回应。

Xi on Tuesday called on authorities across the nation of 1.4 billion people to draw lessons from the case, and strengthen their prevention and control of risks. “Making every effort to safeguard the security of people’s lives and social stability” is of top importance, he added the before leaving China for two leaders’ summits in Peru and Brazil.
习近平周二呼吁全国14亿人口的有关部门汲取教训，加强风险防控。在离开中国出席秘鲁和巴西两场领导人会晤之前，他补充说，“全力维护人民群众生命安全和社会稳定”是重中之重。

The reporting delay drew criticism even in China’s tightly-controlled social media universe. On Weibo some users questioned the attacker’s given motive, after authorities also said the man was unconscious at a hospital after turning a knife on himself inside his car.
即使在中国严格控制的社交媒体领域，报道的延迟也招致了批评。一些用户在微博上质疑袭击者的动机，此前当局还表示，该男子在车内持刀自残，在医院昏迷不醒。

“Fan is in a coma, how did you know the reason for the murder?” asked one user, who criticized the initial media blackout. “Why did you stop the media at the scene from sending back reports?” The user added: “I am waiting for the follow-up investigation to see if people’s lives matter less than national events.”
“范已经昏迷了，你怎么知道杀人原因的？”一位用户问道，他批评了最初的媒体封锁。 “为什么阻止现场媒体发回报道？”该用户补充道：“我正在等待后续调查，看看人们的生命是否比国家大事更重要。”

Police said they had used “surveillance camera clips, witness testimony and electronic evidence,” without elaborating, to determine that the division of assets was the root of the problem.

China’s leaders have since September sought to stabilize growth unleashing their the boldest stimulus package since the pandemic, as a growing number of protests connected to labor and economic issues put pressure on authorities to calm nerves. The return of Donald Trump to the White House in January is likely to complicate efforts to steady the economy, as he threatens to spark another tariff war.

Huang Kunming, the top provincial official who is also a member of the 24-man Politburo, called for a thorough investigation of all types of disputes, including those involving “marriages and families, neighborhood disputes, lawsuits, agriculture and land rights, and finance and real estate.”

Chinese authorities are tasking grassroots party cells across the nation to screen people deemed at risk of inflicting their anger on members of society, according to the South China Morning Post. Those efforts have been stepped up in recent months, after a knifeman went on a rampage in a Shanghai supermarket and two stabbing incidents targeting Japanese nationals involving school children.

“Being bent on blocking information and suppressing the demand of ordinary people to make the society look harmonious can only achieve the opposite of what is desired,” one user wrote on Weibo.

“The indiscriminate attack in Zhuhai shows that it is difficult to govern the source of social conflicts, just like the shooting cases in the United States,” the person added.