'Chinese-style suicide' stirs concerns

There have been many suicides in China since early 2010. For example, more than 10 Foxconn employees jumped to their deaths this year, which caused quite a stir among the public and the media at home and abroad. Experts coined a term "Chinese-style suicide" to describe this high-profile social phenomenon which came into public spotlight for the first time.

A prominent feature of the "Chinese-style suicide" is that most of Chinese suicide victims did not kill themselves because they were mentally ill. Instead, they committed suicide mainly because of their families' economic problems and the traditional Chinese outlook on life: laying down one's life for justice.

As the "Chinese-style suicide" is not directly related to mental illness, it is impractical to use Western theories to prevent suicides in China. In other words, suicides in the Western world are more of a medical problem, while suicides in China have become largely a public health and social problem because a large number of the Chinese people who committed suicide did not have any mental illness.

More than one fourth of the 1 million annual suicides worldwide are from China. According to the shocking data popularized among China's academic circle, there are more than 287,000 suicides and 2 million attempted suicides in China per year, with a high suicide rate of 23 suicide deaths per 100,000 persons. Suicide has become the fifth leading cause of death in China.

However, the suicide issue had long been neglected in China. The turning point occurred in 2002 when the article "Suicide Rate in China: 1995-1999," written by a Canadian doctor named Michael R. Phillips and his Chinese counterparts Xianyun Li and Yanping Zhang, was released in the international authoritative medical journal Lancet and attracted attention at home and abroad. The high suicide rate and special suicide modes in China disclosed in the article became the focus of China's suicide issue.

Michael R. Phillips found through surveys that the suicides in China are quite different from those in other countries. The suicide rate in China's rural areas is three to five times higher than that in urban areas and the female suicide rate is 25 percent higher than the male suicide rate. Among the Chinese youth between the ages of 15 and 34, suicide is the top cause of death, while suicide was only the third or fourth leading cause of death for those at the same age group in North American countries.

YangCheng Evening News contributes to this report.

By People's Daily Online