Is China covering up a violent attack at a Beijing market?

The videos are unverified. But when The Economist visited the site of the market the following day, it was surrounded by dozens of police officers and local volunteers wearing the red armbands typical of Communist Party members. A vehicle from China’s SWAT police was parked nearby. When asked, a police officer refused to say if anything had happened. But if there had been an attack, he ventured, mental illness would probably be to blame, and the perpetrator would no doubt be in custody. “China’s police are very effective,” he said. His colleagues then prevented questions being posed to local residents.

Acts of sudden violence against innocent bystanders can occur anywhere (on March 28th, for instance, a man in Britain drove his car into pedestrians for as yet unknown reasons, injuring seven people). China is no stranger to such things either: over the past two years there have been at least eight reported cases of people using knives or cars to attack parents and children in front of schools, for instance, in apparent acts of despair or anger at society. But, as the Fangshan episode illustrates, China is unusual in its tight control of news about violent incidents, which run counter to officials’ boasts of the country’s “harmonious society”.

The authorities are refusing to acknowledge that anything happened. Still, veiled comments suggest citizens are in the know. “Wasn’t there something bigger that happened today?” asked one person on WeChat, a social-media platform, under an unrelated post by Fangshan’s local police account. “I’ve searched the whole internet and I haven’t seen anything at all,” replied another commenter, who then posted a picture of a construction vehicle.