BEIJING (AFP, REUTERS) - Police caught a suspect in a knife attack that killed six people and wounded 14 others on Saturday afternoon (June 5) in the eastern Chinese city of Anqing, local authorities said on Sunday.

The attack occurred on a pedestrian shopping street of Anqing in Anhui province, 430km west of Shanghai.

The suspect is an unemployed 25-year-old man who was "venting anger over things not going well in the family, and pessimism", the Communist Party in Anqing said in a statement on the social media site Weibo.

Of the 14 people injured, one remained in severe condition and the rest were stable, the statement said.

Knife attacks are not uncommon in China, which heavily restricts access to firearms.

In April, a man with a knife killed two children and injured 16 others at a nursery school in southern China.

In 2018, a man who stabbed nine children to death and wounded another 11 in northern China was sentenced to death.

Violent crime has risen in China in recent decades as the country's economic boom created a bigger gap between the rich and poor.

Studies have also described a rise in the prevalence of mental disorders.