The horrific video footage of a two-year-old Chinese toddler being run over twice and then ignored by 17 people has shocked and stunned the world.

The incident took place in Foshan City, Guangdon province, where a surveillance video captured a van running over a toddler and then driving away, leaving the child bleeding in the middle of the road. The injured baby, a girl called Yueyue, was callously ignored by more than a dozen people who walked and drove past her. Worse still, the child was hit for a second time, by a truck.

A total of 17 people passed by, before a garbage-collecting woman picked up the bleeding body and called for the child's mother.

According to a state media report on Tuesday, Yueyue is fighting for her life. She is in a coma and in critical condition, at the Guangzhou Military District General Hospital.

“Although saving people constantly brings trouble, nonetheless, ignoring the dying or even helping with evil acts by negligence is ripping apart society’s ethical baseline and dissolving any sense of conscience deep in the souls of the public,” commentator Li Hongbing wrote, in Tuesday’s People’s Daily.

The drivers who ran over the child have been arrested. However, the acts of indifference by people who saw the bleeding and dying child on the street but chose not to come to her aid has resulted in strong criticism worldwide.

The question, now, is whether the growing materialistic tendencies of China are killing any moral sentiments the country may have.

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