Gong Junli has been waiting for the past two years. Ever since his 8-year-old daughter Xinyue was stabbed multiple times and her body dumped in a poplar forest in northwestern China, he imagined the killer would eventually be brought to justice.
But justice becomes complicated when the defendant is also a child.
Police said the boy who killed Xinyue was 13 years old at the time. His trial, which begins on Wednesday, will attempt to answer a question plaguing Chinese society: How should China deal with young children accused of heinous crimes?
Countries around the world have long struggled to balance punishment and forgiveness for children. But the debate is particularly compelling in China, where a history of relative leniency toward young offenders contrasts with the limited rights of adult criminal defendants. For decades, governments have emphasized educating and rehabilitating young offenders rather than incarcerating them.
However, there has been a recent backlash. After a series of high-profile child killings in recent years, many Chinese have called on the state to take tougher measures. The government also responded. Crescent’s killing is one of the first known cases to go to trial since the government lowered the age from 14 to 12 at which children can be prosecuted for murder and other serious crimes.
Several incidents this year have reignited the debate. In January, police in central China dropped charges against a boy accused of pushing a 4-year-old girl to death into a cesspool because the boy was under 12 and too old, Chinese media reported. Small and not suitable for prosecution. In March, police said three 13-year-old boys dug a grave in an abandoned greenhouse, took a classmate there and killed him near the city of Handan, also in central China. The boys were quickly charged.
Hashtags related to the Handan killings on Chinese social media It received more than a billion views in one day, with legal scholars and ordinary social media users calling for severe punishment, including the death penalty, for the perpetrators. Some believe that young people are more willing to commit crimes because they know they will not be punished by the law. A criminal law professor with more than 30 million followers on Chinese social media has accused those who try to shield minors from punishment of “moral relativism.”
But others point to factors that may prompt children to commit crimes, such as parental neglect or poverty. Many Chinese worry that poor children in rural areas – defendants in some of the most high-profile cases – are being abandoned as the price of economic progress. Many of these children are described as “left-behind children” because their parents leave them at home while they seek better jobs further away.
As public pressure mounts, the Supreme Court last month issued new guidance on preventing juvenile delinquency, including the possibility of holding guardians accountable for the behavior of their children.
It also announced the recent sentencing of four children aged 12 to 14 to 10 to 15 years in prison, the first trial in which this age group has been admitted. The court said the children had committed unspecified violent crimes and said it was trying to show “tolerance rather than connivance”.
Mr. Gong said that Xinyue is a child with a good temper. He likes the cartoon “Paw Patrol” and likes to eat mangoes and strawberries. On September 25, 2022, her grandparents were watching her while her single father, Mr. Gong, who worked at a construction site, was on the construction site more than 100 miles away. That afternoon, Mr. Gong’s father called to say that Xinyue was missing.
Mr Gong ran back to their village, a poor community of about 40 households Nestled among the corn terraces and potato fields of Gansu Province. When he arrived, Xinyue’s body had been discovered.
Police arrested a 13-year-old neighbor. An indictment shared by Mr Gong said the boy “developed a hatred towards women” because he was “not satisfied with his mother’s parenting style”. Citing physical evidence, witness statements and the boy’s confession, the indictment said the boy placed a knife in the woods, then took Xinyue there and stabbed her in the neck.
The indictment said the boy was being held in a local jail and it was unclear whether he had access to an attorney. Rights activists accuse Chinese officials of sometimes coercing confessions under pressure. Local police and courts declined requests for comment.
Multiple attempts to contact the boy’s parents were unsuccessful. Red Star News, a news outlet controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, reported that it interviewed his mother, Ms. Chen. Ms Chen did not say whether she believed her son killed Xinyue, but she apologized and said she had offered compensation to Mr Gong’s family.
Ms. Chen also said that her son had been bullied and was once forced to eat feces by his classmates. She admits that she beat him academically.
After the boy was arrested, Mr. Gong hoped that the matter could be resolved as soon as possible. But for more than a year, prosecutors did not bring charges against the boy. Mr. Gong also expected to be sentenced to death, given the wide range of crimes for which China carries the death penalty. He was outraged when he learned that the law prohibited the execution of minors.
He said the law purports to protect minors. But “were the children we lost protected?”
Shen Anqi, a law professor at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, said that China has long been considered relatively progressive in juvenile justice and is more advanced than some Western countries. International conventions recommend that the minimum age for prosecution is 12 years. China in the 1970s set the minimum age at 14.
Especially in recent years, Beijing has encouraged prosecutors to divert young offenders into educational programs or community service. Research around the world shows that incarcerating young offenders does little to reduce recidivism. The number of juvenile convictions fell by nearly 70% between 2008 and 2022.
But alternatives to prison are riddled with holes. Juvenile correctional facilities and reform schools are often overseen by police rather than specially trained staff. Parents can choose not to send their children there.
Officials are even less sure what to do with children under 14. Police said they had no choice because they could not press charges.
Zhang Jing, an adviser to the China Youth Delinquency Prevention Association in Beijing, said public anger over the case prompted the government to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 12 in 2021.
It’s unclear whether youth crime rates are actually on the rise. The Supreme Court recently announced that a total of 12,000 minors were sentenced in the first three months of 2024, an increase of nearly 80% compared with the same period last year. But that likely reflects a change in officials’ prosecution decisions rather than an actual increase in the number of juvenile crimes, experts say. China does not release arrest statistics. Social media also helped amplify cases.
Debates over punishment have somewhat overshadowed discussions of prevention, particularly how to help so-called left-behind children who are involved in some of these crimes.
Research has found that about 70 million left-behind children are more likely to be bullied or abused, in part because they may receive less supervision or care. According to state media reports, the three suspects in the Handan case were detained as well as the victim.
In response, many Chinese have urged parents to return to their hometowns to raise their children, or suggested that parents should take responsibility if their children cannot return.
But Beijing-based Professor Zhang said the calls ignored the original reasons why parents were separated from their children. China prohibits most children from going to school outside their hometown, making it difficult for workers to take their children with them.
“There is no use in punishing parents. Wouldn’t it be better to change the parents’ environment?” Professor Zhang said. He also called for more resources for rehabilitation and prevention, such as police officers who receive special training to deal with teenagers.
Mr Gong also acknowledged that many parents face impossible choices. He himself was often away for weeks or months at a time because there were few job opportunities in his village.
“Who doesn’t want their children or family to have a better life?” he said. “But everyone has to do it in their own way.”
Now, Mr. Gong has been working odd jobs near his home while awaiting trial.
Xinyue was buried in the grove where she died. Mr. Gong cut down the poplar trees and planted cherry and peach trees in their place. He imagines the heart moons being reborn and feeding on them.
Li You and Siyi Zhao Contributed research.
