HONG KONG - The brutal killing of a stray dog and her puppies in China in June has ignited widespread condemnation, prompting animal lovers and activists to call for improved animal welfare, with protests even taking place abroad.
Calls for better legal protection for animals have grown in more than 100 Chinese cities since the incident took place on June 28 in a village in Jieyang in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
Adverts and videos in remembrance of the stray dog, known as Wang Wang, subsequently appeared on large outdoor screens in Taipei, Tokyo and New York, with related protests planned to be held in Nagoya in Japan this November.
Wang Wang, who had subsisted on help from villagers in Jieyang, was repeatedly beaten and then set on fire by several boys under 14 years old, with her three puppies also killed, according to reports. The minors, whose motives were unclear, were sent to correctional facilities.
A video of the abuse later began circulating on Chinese social media, with one Chinese beauty brand becoming the first to place advertisements in multiple commercial establishments condemning the cruelty.
The attention received by the incident also appeared to come to the notice of China's censors, with related posts on Chinese social media platforms beginning to vanish. Jieyang authorities, meanwhile, appealed to the public not to spread information about it.
Social media posts by some celebrities about the incident were later found to have disappeared, while some individuals were reportedly warned by the police and asked to stop their activism.
In Hong Kong, mourners paid their respects to Wang Wang after news about the abuse spread on social media. Leung Pak-yu, a Muay Thai gym operator, hung up posters behind the windows of his boxing gym that read, "Tragedies of this kind must never recur."
"Animals, like us, have lives," the 32-year-old told Kyodo News.
In 2025, the total number of pet cats and dogs in China's urban areas alone was estimated to have exceeded 120 million.
