Uploaded July 2013 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
By now you have probably heard about the man who set off a homemade bomb inside a Beijing Airport terminal. Now, the words "terrorist attack" may quickly come to mind. But actually, this bombing wasn't the work of a terrorist. In fact, the man, 34-year-old Ji Zhongxing, was someone known in China as a petitioner.
A petitioner is someone who has been wronged by authorities, but for one reason or another, cannot get their complaints addressed, so they appeal or petition to have their grievances corrected.
In Ji's case, he was left disabled from the waist down 8 years ago in Guangdong province, after a brutal beating by a group of city patrol officials. He lost his ability to work, and incredibly, the local court ruled against him when he tried to sue. So, for the next several years, Ji petitioned.
Now, China's petitioning system is operated by the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, or Xing Fang Ban信訪辦, I'll call it the petitioning office for short. But the problem is, this appeals system has become largely ineffective. There are several reasons.
First of all, a lot of complaints are filed, because every day, things like forced evictions, illegal beatings, wrongful detentions happen all over the country. So the sheer number of petitioners makes it hard for all of them to be addressed.
Also, the system is very bureaucratic, and it's easy for the different petitioning offices within different government agencies to simply push the case to someone else, particularly when they are asked to investigate mistakes that they themselves or their colleagues have made.
So, when petitioners spend years and get nowhere with their local authorities, many travel to Beijing. In fact, each year, hundreds of thousands of petitioners from around China converge in the capital city.
But the thing is, central authorities aren't really about fixing the problem either. Rather than implementing measures to try and address what's wrong, the central government hands out penalties to local officials for having too many petitioners from their area, and award them when there are fewer.
So what happens? Yep, to make sure they don't look bad, local officials employ all sorts of ways to stop petitioners from their provinces from making their way to Beijing. And these methods are brutal. Petitioners are kidnapped, beaten and illegally detained in black jails. Others are thrown in labor camps for vague accusations like "disturbing social order."
So the cards really are stacked against these petitioners. Imagine someone who has lost their home, or their job because of wrongdoing by government officials. These victims then exhaust their life savings to try and get justice through the courts, get nowhere, and when they try to petition, they are given the run around, and even end up being held against their will for days or months on end...
And this has been the pattern for years, and all of that frustration can be bottled up, for a while...except until someone feels like they have nothing to lose anymore.
This is why we saw what happened at the Beijing Airport. Ji Zhongxing had reportedly tried to hand out flyers to tell people about how he has suffered. He was stopped from doing this. Before he set-off his homemade explosive device, he told people to go away. He was the only one injured after the explosion. So he really wasn't there to hurt anyone, he just saw no other way to get the government to listen.
Other desperate acts have been more violent. One famous case is that of Yang Jia, who killed six police officers.Yang had failed to get compensation after police badly beat him up and maimed him in 2007. In 2012, a petitioner from eastern China killed himself in an explosive attack inside a government office. He had been stopped by local authorities to petition to higher-level officials.
In this latest case, Ji Zhongxing survived the blast, but one of his arms had to be amputated. Keep in mind, he was already disabled before all of this. His brother says his family hasn't been able to get in contact with him after authorities took him away from the airport.
I really do feel bad for these petitioners. Obviously resorting to violence should not be condoned, but I cannot imagine the hardship and mental anguish they must go through when they are mistreated by those in power, and have no other ways to make things right.
What do you guys think about how petitioners are treated? Do you think there could be more ticking time bombs out there, and what can be done to help them?
Leave your comments below, and you can find out more about Ji Zhongxing's case over here.
By now you have probably heard about the man who set off a homemade bomb inside a Beijing Airport terminal. Now, the words "terrorist attack" may quickly come to mind. But actually, this bombing wasn't the work of a terrorist. In fact, the man, 34-year-old Ji Zhongxing, was someone known in China as a petitioner.
A petitioner is someone who has been wronged by authorities, but for one reason or another, cannot get their complaints addressed, so they appeal or petition to have their grievances corrected.
In Ji's case, he was left disabled from the waist down 8 years ago in Guangdong province, after a brutal beating by a group of city patrol officials. He lost his ability to work, and incredibly, the local court ruled against him when he tried to sue. So, for the next several years, Ji petitioned.
Now, China's petitioning system is operated by the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, or Xing Fang Ban信訪辦, I'll call it the petitioning office for short. But the problem is, this appeals system has become largely ineffective. There are several reasons.
First of all, a lot of complaints are filed, because every day, things like forced evictions, illegal beatings, wrongful detentions happen all over the country. So the sheer number of petitioners makes it hard for all of them to be addressed.
Also, the system is very bureaucratic, and it's easy for the different petitioning offices within different government agencies to simply push the case to someone else, particularly when they are asked to investigate mistakes that they themselves or their colleagues have made.
So, when petitioners spend years and get nowhere with their local authorities, many travel to Beijing. In fact, each year, hundreds of thousands of petitioners from around China converge in the capital city.
But the thing is, central authorities aren't really about fixing the problem either. Rather than implementing measures to try and address what's wrong, the central government hands out penalties to local officials for having too many petitioners from their area, and award them when there are fewer.
So what happens? Yep, to make sure they don't look bad, local officials employ all sorts of ways to stop petitioners from their provinces from making their way to Beijing. And these methods are brutal. Petitioners are kidnapped, beaten and illegally detained in black jails. Others are thrown in labor camps for vague accusations like "disturbing social order."
So the cards really are stacked against these petitioners. Imagine someone who has lost their home, or their job because of wrongdoing by government officials. These victims then exhaust their life savings to try and get justice through the courts, get nowhere, and when they try to petition, they are given the run around, and even end up being held against their will for days or months on end...
And this has been the pattern for years, and all of that frustration can be bottled up, for a while...except until someone feels like they have nothing to lose anymore.
This is why we saw what happened at the Beijing Airport. Ji Zhongxing had reportedly tried to hand out flyers to tell people about how he has suffered. He was stopped from doing this. Before he set-off his homemade explosive device, he told people to go away. He was the only one injured after the explosion. So he really wasn't there to hurt anyone, he just saw no other way to get the government to listen.
Other desperate acts have been more violent. One famous case is that of Yang Jia, who killed six police officers.Yang had failed to get compensation after police badly beat him up and maimed him in 2007. In 2012, a petitioner from eastern China killed himself in an explosive attack inside a government office. He had been stopped by local authorities to petition to higher-level officials.
In this latest case, Ji Zhongxing survived the blast, but one of his arms had to be amputated. Keep in mind, he was already disabled before all of this. His brother says his family hasn't been able to get in contact with him after authorities took him away from the airport.
I really do feel bad for these petitioners. Obviously resorting to violence should not be condoned, but I cannot imagine the hardship and mental anguish they must go through when they are mistreated by those in power, and have no other ways to make things right.
What do you guys think about how petitioners are treated? Do you think there could be more ticking time bombs out there, and what can be done to help them?
Leave your comments below, and you can find out more about Ji Zhongxing's case over here.
