Student at Japanese school dies after stabbing in China

A ten-year-old Japanese student at a Japanese school in southern China has been killed in a stabbing, officials in Tokyo said.

The Japanese government called on Beijing to disclose details of the attack and take preventive measures.

A suspect is in custody.

Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa expressed her condolences and said it was “extremely regrettable” that the student had died despite calls for caution and increased security measures around the anniversary of the start of the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s.

Ms Kamikawa said she had also ordered Japanese schools in China to review their security measures and asked China to disclose details of the attack and do everything possible to prevent a repeat of similar attacks on Japanese people.

The student was stabbed by a man about 200 meters from the gate of the Shenzhen Japanese School, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a daily briefing.

“The attacker was arrested on the spot. The case is still under investigation,” Mr Lin said.

The motive for the attack in the city of Shenzhen is still unclear.

In an email to Japanese citizens living in China, the Japanese embassy urged residents to be vigilant and take precautions, citing knife attacks in recent months.

The Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, which is responsible for Shenzhen, called for measures to prevent such incidents.

On June 24, a knife attack occurred at the bus stop of a Japanese school in the southeastern city of Suzhou, killing a Chinese citizen who tried to stop the attacker and injuring a Japanese mother and her child.

In early June, a Chinese man stabbed four US university lecturers and a Chinese man who tried to intervene in a public park in Jilin, northeast China.

The four lecturers from Cornell College taught at Beihua University.

Her injuries were not critical.