A CAR thief in north-eastern China who discovered a baby boy asleep in a stolen 4x4 killed him and buried the corpse in the snow.

The 48-year-old thief’s confession prompted a wave of seething incredulity on the internet in China and a bout of soul-searching about parenting, capital punishment and media censorship.

Thousands attended a candlelit vigil in Changchun and “Changchun stolen infant” was among the most popular topics on the Sina Weibo microblogging website. Amid an outpouring of sympathy, some Weibo users debated whether the parents should be held partially responsible for losing the child. Some said the killer should be executed.

Other posts held a mirror up to the intense government control and crass commercialism that define life in China. Journalists leaked a circular from the Changchun propaganda department instructing local media on how to report on the crisis. “No frontpage coverage allowed,” it said. “There shall be no questioning of the police’s work.” Posts containing the instructions have since been deleted by internet censors.

A Buick dealership in a neighbouring province used a picture of the baby in a microblog post advertising a GPS system that would guarantee customers “peace of mind” in similar circumstances. The dealership was skewered by netizens — “go die” wrote one — and subsequently issued an apology.

According to official statistics, China’s homicide rate is 0.8 cases per 100,000 people — among the lowest in the world — and 94.5 per cent of these cases are solved. Yet Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor in Beijing, says that because many cases are unreported, the actual number may be much higher.

Zhou said that widespread desperation caused by China’s growing wealth gap, rampant corruption and environmental degradation may be fuelling a rise in crime. — The Guardian, London