BEIJING - China's Internet users unleashed a torrent of criticism against a respected tenor and music teacher whose son drove a car without a license and brutally attacked a couple on Tuesday.

Li Shuangjiang, a 72-year-old man who built his reputation in past decades by singing popular patriotic songs, was scolded by netizens for failing to raise his son properly, a case that is reflective of the mounting disdain for China's "fuerdai," or "rich second generation."

Li's 15-year-old son and another teenager got out of a BMW sedan and a Audi sedan, respectively, and attacked a couple who allegedly blocked their driveway near the entrance of a residential community in Beijing on Tuesday night. Li's son reportedly warned a crowd of onlookers not to report him and his friend to the police. The pair were prevented from leaving the scene by onlookers before police arrived.

The pair's actions inspired netizens to conduct a "human flesh search," a practice popularized by Chinese netizens that involves hunting down the personal details of a publicly despised figure and posting them online. Netizens were highly contemptful of the two.

"A 15-year-old can drive a car without a license and display outright arrogance in public just because his father is Li Shuangjiang?" a netizen using the screenname "tiangang" wrote on his blog.

Internet users also rewrote the lyrics of "Red Star Guides Me To Fight," a revolutionary song that made Li famous in the 1970s, to mock the arrogance of the junior Li.

Li and his wife Meng Ge, another famous singer, have said during previous interviews that they are not fond of traditional Chinese child-rearing doctrines. The couple touted their "relaxed education method," which allowed their son to have as much freedom as he liked.

Li, who is the dean of the music department of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, reportedly visited the wounded couple Thursday in the emergency room of a military hospital in Beijing and apologized for his son's misbehavior.

China's remarkable economic success over the past three decades has spawned a number of rich and powerful businessmen, officials and celebrities. The children of these wealthy families are known as China's "rich second generation," a title which has earned them notoriety and scorn. News stories in which the children of China's rich and powerful openly flout the law have stirred up public debate over the country's yawning wealth gap.

Last year, a drunk 23-year-old hit-and-run driver gained nationwide notoriety by reportedly shouting "sue me if you dare, my father is Li Gang." The Li Gang in question is a district police chief in central china's Hebei Province.

His song Li Qiming was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison for the accident, which left one woman dead and another injured.