China is one of the safest countries in the world, with people's sense of security reaching as high as 98.4 percent in 2020 and over 83.6 percent of the population satisfied with the current public security situation, the Ministry of Public Safety (MPS) said Thursday.

Li Guozhong, the spokesperson of MPS, said as of 2020, the total number of criminal cases filed nationwide had dropped for five consecutive years and that the number of eight major criminal cases had dropped for six consecutive years. The eight major criminal cases are intentional homicide, intentional injury to death, explosion, poisoning, arson, robbery, rape and kidnapping.

Aside from Chinese people, many foreigners who live in China said they are often amazed at the level of public safety when they first come to China.

On question-and-answer platform Quora, the question "How safe is China?" has been answered by 798 times. CGTN found that most of the people who responded to the question believe China is really safe. Their main reason can be divided into the following aspects: They can go out at midnight without worrying about their safety; Chinese people are friendly and unaggressive; guns are strictly controlled in China, and security measures are tight in public places.

"I can walk around after midnight in any eastern city and know that nothing will happen to me," said Ervis Micukaj, a Quora user who claims he has been living in China since 2013. "There are so many different policemen everywhere that you can simply ask them for help. They are not always helpful, but they are present."

Another user named Matthew Bell said China is the safest country he has ever lived in.

"Coming from a 27-year -old African American, you don't have to worry about your safety at all compared to living in the United States. Use your common sense, and everything will be fine," Matthew said.

"In America, there is constant gun violence across the country. In China, there are no guns at all, except for certain agencies. After living in China for some time now, it is perplexing that Americans have such easy access to shoot someone, even in common cases such as road rage."

Liu Hongbin, the deputy dean of the International Police Law Enforcement School of People's Public Security University of China, explained that the reason so many foreigners view China as a safe place is the inclusiveness of Chinese culture so that when they come to China, they basically don't feel cross-cultural hostilities. He added that Chinese culture also values stability and rejects violence.

"The formation of Chinese culture is the result of the integrating multi-ethnic cultures, which is very inclusive," Liu said. "Chinese people are friendly, so when foreigners are in China, they usually don't have safety concerns," 

Liu added that despite strict rules on human rights protection in Western countries, cultural rivalries are still common, and minority cultures often face discrimination from the dominant culture, which causes tension.

As for the gun issue, Liu said China controls guns in an extremely strict way which has prevented many violent crimes.

According to official data, the U.S. has the 32nd-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 3.96 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019. That was more than six times as high as the total homicide case rate in China, which had about 0.6 deaths per 100,000 people.