One of the executed, a 62-year-old man, has been sentenced for killing 35 people by driving into a crowd in the Chinese city of Zhuhai at the end of November. The attack was, according to the authorities, the deadliest in the country in over ten years.
The perpetrator went on the attack at a sports arena where people had gathered to exercise. 35 people were killed and 43 injured, according to state media. The convicted man was arrested on the spot. He had managed to injure himself with a knife and fell into a coma, according to the police.
In the second incident, also in November, eight people were killed and 17 injured when a 21-year-old man carried out a knife attack at a vocational school in the city of Wuxi.
China's President Xi Jinping has urged local authorities to take measures to prevent attacks referred to as "revenge on society".
China is believed to execute more prisoners each year than the rest of the world combined, although the exact statistics are kept secret. The condemned are usually shot to death, but lethal injections have also been introduced in recent years.
