Similar attacks in recent days have sparked discussions online about the social phenomenon of "taking revenge on society", where individuals act on personal grievances by attacking strangers.
On Saturday eight people were killed and 17 others were wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China. Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year but had failed the exam.
Before that, on 12 November, at least 35 people were killed in a car attack in southern China, when a man ran into groups of people exercising on a sports track.
And in October, in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in stabbing at a supermarket.
According to police records, there have been 19 incidents of indiscriminate violence in China this year in which the perpetrator was not known to the victims. Sixty-three people have been killed and 166 injured in these attacks. This is a sharp increase on previous years - 16 killed and 40 injured in 2023, for instance.
While the incidents are still sporadic and rare, they are high-profile. And the videos that often circulate soon after on social media have prompted concern and fear among people.
"These are symptoms of a society with a lot of pent-up grievances," Lynette Ong, distinguished professor of Chinese politics at Canada's University of Toronto, told AFP.
"Some people resort to giving up. Others, if they're angry, want to take revenge."
A slowing economy, high youth unemployment and a property crisis that has hurt savings have led to increasing uncertainty about the future among Chinese people.
Ong said, in the circumstacnes, violent attacks were the "negative side of the same coin".
President Xi Jinping has ordered local officials to ensure the safety and "social stability" of communities and to “strictly prevent extreme cases”.
Officials are keen to show they are acting quickly. They worry that such a high number of casualties in a single year could raise questions about China's safety record, further alarming people and even discouraging tourism.
The Communist Party has rapidly expanded surveillance in recent years and after the car attack last week in Zhuhai, there have been further orders to deploy local officials and community workers to try to prevent unrest.