China Deploys More Security to Try to Reassure a Country on Edge

The Chinese government is stepping up measures to root out potential troublemakers and suppress social discontent, after a spate of mass killings has shaken the country and stirred fears about public safety.Armed police have been stationed outside of schools, with bollards erected nearby to prevent cars from ramming into people.Police officers have increased patrols in supermarkets, tourist attractions and other crowded places, and pledged to better regulate knives and other weapons.

Officials have also promised to help the unemployed and distribute holiday subsidies to the needy.The security push, which the authorities in some places have labeled “Operation Winter,” follows a string of recent attacks that put a renewed spotlight on China’s struggling economy.In November, a driver plowed into a crowd outside a sports center in the city of Zhuhai, killing at least 35 people in China’s deadliest attack in a decade.

A stabbing that killed eight people, and another car ramming outside a school, followed barely a week afterward.In all three cases, officials said the perpetrators were venting financial dissatisfactions.After the Zhuhai attack, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ordered officials to “strictly prevent extreme cases.” The authorities at all levels have raced to comply.The drivers in the two car attacks were sentenced to death late last month, in unusually speedy trials that showed the government’s determination to crack down on possible copycats.Projecting stability and control has long been one of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s biggest preoccupations, its implicit justification for limiting citizens’ civil liberties.

But that preoccupation has become even more central as high youth unemployment, soaring foreclosures and deteriorating international relations have fueled widespread anxiety about China’s future.Some government workers have gone unpaid, as local governments’ finances stagnate.We are having trouble retrieving the artic...