Death of Japanese boy sparks concern and debate

Washington – The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in southern China has caused great concern among Japanese living in China, with online comments from Chinese people showing reactions ranging from shock to cynicism.

The 10-year-old boy, surnamed Shen, was stabbed to death by a 44-year-old man on the morning of Sept. 18 as he was on his way to school near a Japanese school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

The child, whose father is Japanese and whose mother is Chinese, was a Japanese citizen, according to the ministry. He was taken to hospital and later succumbed to his injuries.

The boy attended the Shenzhen Japanese School, an international school for the children of Japanese exiles living in the region, an industrial center where many Japanese companies, especially car companies, built factories decades ago. Only Japanese citizens are allowed to attend this school.

According to a local Shenzhen newspaper, the suspect, surnamed Zhong, acted alone and was arrested by police on the spot.

The same report said Zhong confessed to stabbing the boy. Zhong, who has a previous criminal record, was released on bail by local police in 2015 on charges of “damaging public telecommunications facilities.” In 2019, he was arrested on suspicion of “falsifying facts and disturbing public order,” the report said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his condolences in a tweet on X, calling it “an extremely despicable crime” and urging China to “provide an explanation for the facts of the situation.”

The stabbing was the third high-profile attack on a foreigner in China in recent months.

In June, a Chinese man injured a Japanese woman and her child in a knife attack in front of a school bus in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. The man also stabbed a Chinese bus attendant who tried to intervene; the attendant later succumbed to her injuries.

Also in June, four US college professors teaching in the northeastern city of Jilin were stabbed while visiting a public park. The American teachers suffered minor injuries and have since returned to the US.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said these attacks were “isolated cases” and that the safety of foreigners living in China was being protected.

However, the Chinese government is known for being very secretive when it comes to criminal investigations, and very little information has been released about the suspects' surnames and employment status in the two June attacks.

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, criticized Beijing's limited release of details and said he was actively pushing for more details.

Japanese companies, especially car manufacturers with a presence in China, have called on their employees to be vigilant.

Toshiba and Toyota have asked their employees to take precautions against possible violence. Panasonic is offering its employees free flights home. Mitsubishi and Nissan have communicated with their Japanese employees in China to allay their concerns and offered them counseling services.

Consequences of xenophobic propaganda

Meanwhile, Chinese people reacted differently in their online comments to the recent knife incident.

Some expressed their shock, sadness and anger. Some residents in Shenzhen laid flowers in front of the Japanese school and left letters of apology for the deceased child.

One X user named “Sara Jon” said: “Doesn't it break your heart to hear the boy's mother crying? This is a terrorist attack, this is Hamas.” Another X user named “Jamy Felando” said: “Poor child, I hope he gets peace now and the devil go to hell!”

On China's X-like but censored social platform Weibo, many expressed cynicism and indifference, viewing the attack in light of the atrocities committed during the Japanese invasion of China 80 years ago.

“The boomerang of the Japanese invaders finally came back to their own people,” wrote a Weibo user named yaxuefensitangtaijia. “If they hadn't invaded China and massacred the Chinese, there might be less extreme anti-Japanese sentiment today.”

Someone else agreed: “How many Chinese children died when Japan invaded China?”

It is not clear whether Zhong knowingly committed his crime on September 18, a date many Chinese consider “National Humiliation Day.” On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army officially began its invasion of China, leading to a 14-year war and an estimated 10 million casualties among soldiers and civilians.

Some Chinese say the Chinese government's persistent anti-Japanese propaganda has led to the violence against the Japanese people. A user named “Still Typhoon” compared the propaganda on Weibo to poison: “The poison has backfired. Xenophobia and extreme nationalism are now widespread on the Internet.”

On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that “China and Japan had reached a consensus” on the discharge of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, ending a diplomatic dispute that had simmered for more than two years.

Beijing had sharply criticized Tokyo for causing “a major nuclear safety problem with cross-border implications” when Tokyo began discharging treated radioactive water from the site in August 2023.

A blanket ban on all seafood from Japan was also announced. Anti-Japanese sentiment reached its peak in August, when the official Chinese media relentlessly railed against Japan.