Man kills 2, including himself, in China bombing

An unemployed Chinese man set off an explosion, killing himself, another person and wounding 24, state media reported Tuesday, in apparently the latest deadly action by a disgruntled citizen.

Xie Xingtang detonated the blast on Monday evening at a park in Heze, in the eastern province of Shandong, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that three of the injured were in critical condition.

"Police said the suspect, a 33-year-old unemployed villager Xie Xingtang, was also killed in the blast," Xinhua reported.

Legal paths for pursuing justice in China are limited, as courts are subject to political influence and corruption, and citizens who lodge complaints against authorities often end up in detention.

Disgruntled citizens have staged several deadly incidents elsewhere in the country in recent years.

In June 2013, a street vendor set fire to a bus in Xiamen in east China's Fujian province, killing 46 passengers and himself in an act of retaliation against local authorities.

One of the highest-profile cases came a month later, when Ji Zhongxing, a wheelchair-bound man from southern China, detonated a homemade bomb at Beijing's international airport in a protest against alleged police brutality.

Ji was sentenced to six years in jail, a punishment that triggered a wave of public sympathy among users of China's popular online social networks.

Protests in China -- on a host of issues including local corruption, land seizures, environmental policy, and labour rights -- are estimated at more than 180,000 a year, even as the government devotes vast resources to "stability maintenance".