A 10-year-old student attending a Japanese school in China’s southern city of Shenzhen died in the early hours of Thursday following a knife attack while en route to school the previous day, according to the Japanese Embassy in China.
The attack follows a similar incident in June in which a man attacked a bus used by a Japanese school in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, killing a Chinese woman who attempted to save the students and injuring two others.
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday that the Japanese student was stabbed by a man about 200 meters from the school gate, and was immediately sent to the local hospital.
The 44-year-old alleged perpetrator, whose last name is Zhong, was arrested at the scene following the incident, which occurred at around 8 a.m., and is currently being held amid the investigation, the Nanshan Police Station of Shenzhen’s Public Safety Bureau said in a statement Wednesday.
The police statement identified the student as a minor with a Chinese surname. The Japanese Consulate-General in Guangzhou and Japan’s Foreign Ministry both confirmed to The Japan Times that the student is a Japanese national.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in the afternoon that he felt “deep sorrow” in light of the student’s death on Thursday morning.
“It is an extremely heinous crime, and we regard it as a grave and serious incident,” he said, adding that Japan is fully committed to providing support to the family.
Kishida refrained from commenting on how the incident might impact bilateral relations, but said that he will demand a clear explanation from Chinese authorities on what has happened.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said in a regular news conference Thursday that Japan has dispatched its consulate general in Guangzhou to the scene of the incident.
“We will continue to demand that the Chinese side ensure the safety of Japanese nationals, and we will make every effort to prevent a recurrence, including safety measures for Japanese schools,” he said.
Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano summoned Chinese Ambassador Wu Jianghao on Wednesday evening. Okano expressed “deep concern” over the incident and requested appropriate measures be taken to prevent any recurrence, as well as the tightening of security around Japanese schools throughout China, according to the Foreign Ministry.
The ministry recently proposed for the first time a ¥350 million ($2.4 million) budget for Japanese school bus security in China in the wake of the June incident in Suzhou.
The aim of the budget is to employ one security guard per school bus for the 11 Japanese schools throughout nine cities in mainland China.
Many Liberal Democratic Party presidential candidates called on the government to push China for a response.
“We must continue to demand a strict and sincere response from the Chinese government,” former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Thursday, according to a report by Jiji Press.
Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato posted on X that the Japanese government should strongly demand that Chinese authorities thoroughly investigate the incident and implement concrete measures to prevent a recurrence.
Meanwhile, former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said on his official X account that he was at a loss for words when thinking about the family’s grief and that the series of incidents involving Japanese schools in China is a major concern.
Wednesday’s attack occurred on the 93rd anniversary of the Mukden Incident that led to Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. Anti-Japan sentiment often intensifies in China around this date.
As China’s third-most populous city by urban population and the country’s first special economic zone, the city of Shenzhen, along with the rest of Guangdong Province, host 11,901 Japanese nationals and 1,605 Japanese companies as of 2022 and 2021, respectively, according to the Japanese Consulate-General in Guangzhou.
The recent events, coupled with the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, have shocked Japanese businesses operating in China and dampened the desire for future investment in the country.
