BEIJING - The Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on school bullying after a recent string of high-profile cases, including the murder of a 13-year-old boy in March, sparked a huge public outcry.

The education and public security ministries, along with other government departments, are conducting a “thorough inspection” of primary and secondary schools to identify, prevent and punish school bullying, local media reported recently.

A host of measures have been announced, ranging from checks and inspections, to punishments and enhanced supervision. Also in the works are efforts to set up support hotlines for victims of bullying, appoint anti-bullying ambassadors in the school community, and improve monitoring of students’ psychological well-being.

State broadcaster China Central Television said on April 27 that the “timing of the checks is just right, given the recent attention paid to the issue in recent days, with the numerous cases highlighted by the media”.

The issue of school bullying came to the fore in China earlier in March when a boy’s remains were found in an abandoned vegetable garden in Handan city in northern Hebei province. He was killed and buried by his schoolmates. 

Investigations later revealed that Xiao Guang, as named by Chinese media, had been a long-time victim of school bullies. The autopsy showed injuries to his head and back. The 191 yuan (S$36) Xiao Guang had in his e-wallet had also been transferred to the bullies.

Two hashtags about the murder went viral on microblogging site Weibo, with a total of 1.2 billion views. The topic also sparked about 100,000 discussion threads, with many netizens calling for lifetime imprisonment for the culprits.

State media Xinhua news agency reported on April 16 that the four convicted students, who were between 12 and 13 years old, were given jail sentences of between 10 and 15 years.

Netizens said the culprits got away lightly, since the students would have been given the death sentence if they were tried as adults, as murder is a capital offence in China.

More recently, on April 23, a 14-year-old girl in Changsha, the capital of central Hunan province, tried to slit her wrists with broken glass after being assaulted by her schoolmates, hit with high-heeled shoes and threatened with a knife.

The ringleader, who had beaten up the girl twice before this, uploaded videos of the latest assault on social media to humiliate the victim.

And on April 18, eight students in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi autonomous region in western China, forced a classmate to strip in public in a video that was circulated on social media.

State media reported that the spate of bullying cases highlighted the vulnerability of the country’s “left-behind children”, given that a significant number of the students involved did not come from “complete” or two-parent families. China’s highest court also emphasised in a release on April 16 the importance of addressing the issue of “left-behind children” and those lacking parental supervision.

Data from the Supreme People’s Court showed that in 22.9 per cent of court cases between 2021 and 2023 involving those below the age of 18 accused of violent crimes, such as murder, robbery and kidnapping, the minors did not have sufficient parental supervision, with many coming from single-parent homes or had parents who remarried.

In China, the term “left-behind children” refers to children who stay behind in rural regions when their parents leave to work in urban areas. In many cases, these children are taken care of by their other relatives, such as grandparents, who remain in the rural regions.

A study conducted by government think-tank The China Youth and Children Research Centre of over 3,000 under-18 students in China between 2020 and 2022 showed that 53.5 per cent have been bullied in school, but only 20.3 per cent would report the issue to their teachers, school or parents if the bullying happened for the second time.

Assistant Professor Mu Zheng at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore told The Straits Times that the problem of school bullying in China may have grown in recent years, given how more parents are moving away to the cities for work and leaving their children behind with relatives.

There is also a lack of attention paid to children’s mental health and psychological development as well as their exposure to violent content online, said Prof Mu, whose research includes migration and families in both Singapore and China. 

“Too much emphasis has been placed on children’s education and cognitive outcomes (and) the monetary importance of parenting,” she added.

Mrs Niu Juyi, 37, an accountant in Beijing who has an 11-year-old son, told ST that “parents have been very worried about the cases of school bullying, especially the one about the 13-year-old boy who was killed by his classmates”.

She said that she would talk to her son whenever she reads about these bullying cases, and encourage him to go to her about problems he faces in school, including relationships with his classmates.

“It’s also important for parents to know their child’s classmates’ parents, because they will sometimes hear about what happened to their child based on other classmates’ accounts,” she said, adding that this method has helped her son’s classmates who had been bullied.

A divorced parent in Jilin province’s capital city Changchun in north-eastern China, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Pan, said her 16-year-old daughter had been bullied in school a few years ago for not living with her father. She declined to give her full name to protect her child’s identity.

“At first, I told my daughter to ignore those snide comments, but she came back crying one day. She said she talked back to one of the bullies and got a slap in return,” said the sales executive, 40. “That’s when I scolded the school principal, her form teacher and the other girl’s parents.” And that put a stop to the matter.

“I’m really glad things didn’t get out of hand, but I still feel very guilty for not doing more when she first told me about the bullying.”

• Additional reporting by Miao Chunlei