What Has Happened to Chinese Men?!This past half year, a series of horrific incidents involving Chinese men committing brutal attacks and murders of foreign children have occurred one after another. In June, a man named Zhou attempted to kill a three-year-old child at the Japanese School in Suzhou, but was stopped by the heroic Hu Youping, who sacrificed her life to save the child. Two months later, in a park in Brisbane, Australia, a Chinese man poured scalding hot coffee on a baby, causing severe burns that will require multiple surgeries to treat, leaving the nine-month-old child with permanent scars for life. On September 18, a Chinese man in Shenzhen stabbed a young half-Chinese, half-Japanese boy named Shen Hangping, and despite efforts to save him, the child died from his severe injuries before his tenth birthday. Then, on October 1, a Chinese student studying in Zurich, Switzerland, attacked three Swiss children, stabbing them. One of the victims, a five-year-old boy, sustained serious injuries and, after a day and night of emergency treatment, finally stabilized.

If we look at the months of this year, from May, when four American teachers were stabbed in Jilin, China, to October, when Swiss children were attacked, there has been at least one incident each month (except July) where foreign nationals, particularly children, have fallen victim to Chinese men's violence. I can't help but ask myself, over and over again: Chinese men, what has happened to you?!

What is equally shocking is the celebration these killings have received on Chinese social media. Have my compatriots, who once prided themselves on being part of the "diligent and kind Chinese nation," lost their humanity? The government’s robotic response, calling each of these cases an "isolated incident," claiming that such tragedies could happen in any country, is cold and indifferent. While it’s one thing for spokespersons to sound mechanical, surely they must still have a human heart? How can they be so numb to the loss of such young lives, so indifferent to the killers who destroyed them? How can they dismiss such frequent tragedies as "accidents"? In what country would citizens harbor such deep hatred for foreign children that they resort to murder?

The case of the 24-year-old Chinese killer, Fan Yuhao, in Zurich is particularly troubling. On October 1, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, after posting vulgar criticisms of a female official, he went out to hunt his victims. In the most peaceful country, Switzerland, which has no interest in international conflict, he found his prey—three innocent children, whose blood he spilled, leaving them to scream in agony. Did he find satisfaction? Did his dark, hollow heart truly believe that by sacrificing these children, he was offering a tribute to the 75th anniversary of the republic?

What I’ve noticed is that from May to October, all the perpetrators of these horrific crimes are Chinese men. How tragic! Men, in any society, should be the protectors of women and children, standing as shields in times of danger. Historically, men have sacrificed their lives in war to protect their families—like David or the French men who shielded their girlfriends during the Paris terror attacks. Throughout history, countless men have died for the sake of women and children, earning a place of reverence in their hearts. But what about the mothers of these victimized children over the past few months? How will they now redefine "manhood" in the wake of such irreparable pain?

Chinese male killers, you have utterly defiled yourselves, sinking to a level below that of beasts, comparable to monsters. You have also tarnished the reputation of the Chinese nation. The price of your sins has been paid by women like Hu Youping, who sacrificed her life for the innocent. But has her sacrifice caused you even a moment of guilt? Like Jesus' selfless declaration, "If I don't descend into hell, who will?" how many of you can truly be redeemed by such sacrifice?

These men, lower than animals, do not only target foreign children—they also attack Chinese children. In recent years, they have repeatedly stormed kindergartens, slaughtering innocent and defenseless lives. Chinese men, is this how you seek to settle the disappointments and frustrations of your lives?

When I was a child, I would timidly try to stop my peers from torturing small animals. Sometimes, I would even use my meager allowance to save a kitten’s life. On occasions when the adults in the neighborhood caught a weasel stealing chickens, they would hang it upside down under the large willow tree in the yard, leaving it for the children to torture. At such times, I wouldn’t dare leave the house. I would shiver inside, thinking: avenging the chickens was justified, and executing the weasel was fair, but torturing it to death was inhumane.

This was during the Cultural Revolution, a time when adults lived through the daily reality of people torturing others to death, and children treated such cruelty as entertainment. The children seemed to learn early on that if they didn’t participate in the torment, they could become victims themselves. Children always imitate adults, and often their cruelty surpasses that of the previous generation. Many of the children who found pleasure in cruelty during that time grew up to become parents, raising the generation of children who now commit these heinous acts of violence against others.

The Cultural Revolution perfectly exemplified Sartre’s theory that "hell is other people." Every individual was a potential informant or traitor, and the way to preempt betrayal was to collect others' "black materials" as a means of protection, ready to be used as a trump card in times of danger. No colleague, neighbor, lover, or even family member was exempt from suspicion. Looking at the vast piles of declassified files from East Germany, how many informants turned out to be people’s own spouses? People, feeling profoundly unsafe, would spy on and undermine others’ safety, waiting for the moment to exploit any vulnerability they found.

This was the survival mechanism during the Cultural Revolution: harming others as a means of self-preservation. Those were the most difficult and insecure ten years people lived through. The poison of suspicion and cruelty left a lasting psychological scar on our entire nation. The hatred indoctrinated during the Cultural Revolution has quietly reemerged in recent years. When people are deprived of love and warmth, at the very least, hatred provides them with a false sense of power. Collective hatred can give rise to a false sense of national unity, where people embolden one another and fan the flames of hostility.

Has the mental epidemic of the Cultural Revolution mutated into a contemporary strain? I believe so. In recent years, expressions of xenophobia and anti-Japanese sentiment have become increasingly extreme, yet remain completely safe. Acts of hatred, no matter how disgraceful they may be to human civilization, are often met with applause from large crowds of fellow citizens. The safety net that shields such hate speech and actions from any consequences allows for their escalation. Furthermore, since the authorities never investigate the causes or hold individuals accountable, and since the processes and outcomes are never made public, the scope of hatred inevitably expands, culminating in the senseless slaughter of the innocent.

Children from foreign countries, who have no connection to the perpetrators, become even more defenseless targets, representing the ultimate form of innocence. It seems that for these murderers, their victims must be doubly innocent in order to fully express the intensity and purity of their hatred. When you look closely at these killers, you see that their existence is of little consequence to themselves, to others, or to society—they are, in a sense, merely "getting by." They themselves cannot justify their own existence. If not for the hatred that ties them to a collective sense of shared animosity, magnifying their presence, they would leave no trace of their lives, their existence fading into insignificance.

Freud believed that there are over a hundred symptoms of human regression into childishness, with violent aggression being one of them. In other words, those who resort to violence are essentially "adult babies." This behavior, which can cause immense harm, shares the same regressive traits as behaviors like picking one’s nose, biting fingernails, throwing temper tantrums, sulking, or refusing to leave one’s parents’ home. If Freud's theory holds true, then the Chinese men who kill children are merely individuals with personality disorders that deviate from the normal course of human evolution.

The four-year pandemic caused setbacks for both the national and individual economies, resulting in a significant increase in the number of people feeling like failures. Failure leads to a sense of weakness, and thus weak individuals multiply. One way they cope with their own failure and weakness is by projecting it onto others, creating more victims and weak individuals. By harming others—especially those much smaller and physically weaker than themselves—they manufacture a sense of defeat and weakness in their victims. The death of their victim becomes the manifestation of this defeat, and in this way, the projection of their own failures is, in their eyes, a success.

I have lived in several countries and traveled across five continents, and apart from Nigeria in Africa, I find that Chinese society has a significant lack of awareness about psychological and mental health issues. My limited knowledge of psychology and behavioral science leads me to suspect that many Chinese men, especially in recent years, have been struggling with the difficulties and pressures of employment and earning a living, combined with fierce competition in a society where resources are scarce. As a result, some may be on the verge of a mental health crisis, suffering from varying degrees of psychological and mental disorders.

How can these mental crises be alleviated? Besides medical treatment, another way is through religious solace. Unfortunately, our nation is highly secular, cynical, and too often turns to religion only in desperate times. This means that religion cannot provide the needed spiritual support. As for medicine, it’s already difficult for many Chinese people to afford treatment for "hardware" illnesses (physical ailments of the organs and body), let alone for "software" illnesses (mental and psychological disorders).

After finishing this article, I seem to have found an answer to my earlier question about the Chinese men who kill foreign and domestic children (or those who harbor such violent tendencies): Chinese men, you are sick.

(This article reflects the personal views and opinions of the guest commentator.)