A Chinese man stabbed three passers-by to death in the southern boom town of Shenzhen, police said, the latest in a series of killing sprees in the country.

The man, identified only by his surname He, attacked "several" people on a street in the city, which borders Hong Kong, police said on a verified Sina Weibo account, China's equivalent of Twitter.

Three people were killed and three wounded, they said, adding they were investigating his motives. The wounded were being treated in hospital.

He, 41, from Jieyang in Guangdong province, was subdued by officers who arrived at the scene three minutes after the first reports were received, and was taken to hospital after being wounded himself, police said.

It is the latest in a series of deadly incidents reported across China, where social tensions have risen in recent years against a backdrop of a widening income gap and abuses of public power.

Eleven nursing home patients burned to death early Friday in the northeast of the country after one of them set the facility on fire in a row over money, according to Chinese media reports.

A man knifed five people to death and wounded another three on Thursday in the central province of Henan over land and business disputes.

Also on Thursday, a two-year-old Chinese girl died after being thrown to the ground by a man in his 40s during a row with her mother over parking in Beijing.

Earlier in the week, a man in the southern region of Guangxi stormed an office enforcing China's one-child policy, stabbing two officials to death and wounding four people after a row over his offspring.