Yes, they have been doing that. Yes, it's a dumb idea. Yes, the US had something similar happen in the past with Skylab coming down over Australia and killing a

Yes, they have been doing that. Yes, it's a dumb idea. Yes, the US had something similar happen in the past with Skylab coming down over Australia and killing a cow (we also learned that it's not a particularly good thing to do and are more careful these days). The problem is that the rocket in question has the large 'main' tank go all the way to orbit. Thus they probably can't also include enough propulsion to put it in a controlled deorbit. Meanwhile most other rockets are designed so the core stage is dumped before reaching orbital velocity, so the remaining stages aren't likely to survive the trip back down in big pieces even if they do fail to deorbit and since they're smaller/lighter it takes less to deorbit them in the first place. The risk to people is very low and it tends to be sensationalized, but it's still more responsible behavior to make that risk as small as possible. China has a good bit of work left to do on that front given that they were still dropping hypergolic stages on villages until just a few years ago.