Reminds me of a mugging that took place in NY about 30years ago where over 20 people witnessed it but no one called the police for over half an hour.
Same thing no one wanted to get involved.
There was another incident a few years ago (I *think* it was on NY) where an old man was dying on the sidewalk and people just marched on.
I think that part of the problem is human nature. When you pack people in a tight space, they go on auto-pilot, blocking everything around them out. Even if they notice, they ‘fall back on their training’ and just carry on with their day.
there is nothing to fear here by stopping to help a dying child
As for excuses for China... read the novels of Pearl Buck.
Especially the treatment of girl children.
Not just China, though, Japan Korea, arabs, Russians, other cultures, too ... even our culture of abortion and a POTUS who votes- twice - that legally it is OK for doctors to ignore a dying infant born alive after an abortion Just ask how so many cultures can treat their children and helpless as so expendable
Talk to our troops who served in the Pacific in WW2, read about the Japanese rape of Nanking, ask those who liberated the POW and death camps, read about Stalins starvation of Ukraine, his genocide against ethnics, Mao's campaigns.... North Korea today.....too many to even list
There is a callousness and cruelty in mankind, and accepted more in some cultures, that has always been there.
Kitty Genovese - from Wiki:
The circumstances of her murder and the lack of reaction of numerous neighbors were reported by a newspaper article published two weeks later;[4] the common portrayal of neighbors being fully aware but completely nonresponsive has later been criticized as inaccurate.[5] Nonetheless, it prompted investigation into the social psychological phenomenon that has become known as the bystander effect (or “Genovese syndrome”)[6] and especially diffusion of responsibility.