Local governments in China have stepped up dog-catching operations after a 2-year-old girl was mauled by a Rottweiler earlier this month in the southwestern city of Chengdu, sparking huge online reactions as some responded by beating animals to death or hauling away beloved pets.
Ranged on one side of the issue are people who have been bitten or frightened by one of China's estimated 55 million stray dogs. They mostly blame irresponsible pet owners for abandoning animals they can no longer care for, according to social media comments seen by Radio Free Asia.
On the other is a rapidly growing community of pet lovers and animal rights activists who have spoken out publicly against animal cruelty, including the Yulin dog meat festival, and who blame the government for not regulating dogs and their owners properly in the first place.
Earlier this month, the Chongqing University of International Business and Economics suspended one of its security guards after he reportedly beat a dog to death, admitting that he had "engaged in improper behavior" while "dealing with a stray dog."
Such killings, which were also reported during the Shanghai lockdown of 2022 -- don't enjoy widespread public support. A recent survey by journalist Wang Zhi'an showed that only around 10% of Chinese people support culls as a way of managing the problems caused by strays or undisciplined pets.
Vigilante-style reactions
Some incidents have prompted vigilante-style reactions from animal lovers, according to a police report from the southwestern city of Guiyang, who hauled in five people for questioning after they went round to harass a local man who beat a pet dog to death after it leapt up at his 6-year-old daughter.
"People should maintain a rational and peaceful attitude online, and consciously resist online violence," the police said in a statement on the incident, adding that the man had beaten the unleashed Corgi to death with a shovel on Oct. 23 after the dog "jumped on" his daughter as he was taking her to school.
"If these dog lovers really love dogs, they should take better care of them," read one comment under the story. "These people ... dare to upload video of themselves telling a little girl what a bad person her father is," said another.
The Guiyang dog-killing came just days after a Rottweiler attacked a 2-year-old girl, leaving her with a ruptured kidney, fractured ribs and multiple lacerations, sending shockwaves around the country.
While the owner has been arrested, governments in Anhui and Henan provinces immediately launched "civilized dog-ownership" campaigns, warning owners that any dogs found unleashed in public will be taken away by dog-catching teams.
The Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily called for similar campaigns to be implemented across the country, in a commentary that was reprinted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party newspaper The People's Daily.
"Local authorities naturally need to take action to prevent similar incidents from happening locally and becoming the focus of public opinion," the commentary said.
And officials aren't the only ones responding to such calls.
The China Small Animal Protection Association reported on its WeChat account that private dog-catchers are now taking pets in the eastern city of Wuxi, while reports have also been circulating that a dog was killed in a dormitory at the Sichuan Vocational College of Science and Technology.
Anything but civilized
Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Society, said dogs and other animals often run afoul of China's legal system, and also fall victim to social tensions.
"People's behavior tends to go along with the law of the land," Chen said of the private killings of animals. "The government clearly hasn't addressed the widespread killing of dogs publicly."
Animal rights activists have told Radio Free Asia repeatedly that local government campaigns for "civilized dog-ownership" are themselves anything but civilized, and often end up with beloved pets being cudgeled to death or whisked off to the pound unbeknown to their human families.
According to prominent Chinese-American writer Geling Yan, dogs in China are all too often the victims in mass "clean-up" campaigns that have their roots in collective trauma and political malaise.
"I couldn't help but think of all the 'strike hard' campaigns against dogs that I have personally experienced," Yan wrote in a commentary for RFA Mandarin, in response to the recent anti-dog campaigns.
"They all seemed to happen when the people of China were in a foul mood, with a dark fire raging in their hearts."
Yan's childhood pet dog Xiao Huang was beaten to death during the "Four Clean-ups" political movement under Mao Zedong that paved the way for the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
‘Extension of mutual backstabbing’
Yan was also soon to lose another pet dog "Little Fatty," "Mahua," an egg-laying hen and a Tibetan mastiff called Koler to a further wave politicized violence known as the "Cut off the Tail of Capitalism" movement during the years that followed, she wrote.
"Looking back, the persecution of dogs was an extension of the mutual backstabbing and harm caused by that movement," Yan wrote.
"This kind of retaliatory harming gives rise to dark passions and lets loose the worst aspects of human nature," she said. "So can I speculate that the dog eradication campaigns begun a week ago were caused by people's sense of helplessness and powerlessness caused by the zero-COVID policy and its ending, by [being forced to] lie flat, and other collective behaviors?"
"That sense of uncertainty, of anxiety, a kind of nameless fire, a nameless hatred generated by all these negative feelings finally found a target, and now they are venting it, once again, against humanity's most loyal and speechless companion, the dog," she wrote.
She said persecuting a creature who is even unluckier than oneself can make people feel that they are one of the lucky ones again, and that dog-hunting campaigns have continued in one form or another ever since her childhood.
Counterfeit rabies vaccines
Gong Zengheng, founder of the U.S.-based animal rights group Duoduo Project, which campaigns against the dog and cat meat trade, said such dog-elimination campaigns are "rough and barbaric," and stem from a lack of proper regulation of pet ownership.
Gong called for a crackdown on counterfeit vaccines for rabies, which have hampered efforts to control the disease in some parts of the country, contributing to a widespread fear of strays.
She said local officials and police should also be educated to better deal with stray animals.
"China has been promoting the idea of civilized cities, so I really hope that the government will include civilized dog-ownership as an important part of that," she said.
Singapore-based X commentator Jeffrey Li said that those who make China's laws may live in high-end communities that don't have a stray dog problem, and could therefore be out of touch with ordinary people's concerns.
He said growing economic inequality is likely contributing to a nationwide empathy problem for other humans, "let alone compassion for pets."
"There has long been a divide between dog owners and non-dog owners, and now it has exploded," Li said.
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.