The foreign ministers of Japan and China meet in New York over the fatal knife attack on a Japanese boy in Shenzhen

TOKYO – Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will meet her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in New York on Sept. 23, the Foreign Ministry said.

Ms Kamikawa will call for increased security measures following the knife attack on a Japanese student in China, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Japan's deputy foreign minister will also speak with Beijing on September 23 about the fatal knife attack on a student, the ministry said.

State Minister Yoshifumi Tsuge is scheduled to travel to Beijing from September 22 to 24 “to address the death of a child at the Shenzhen Japanese school,” the ministry said in a statement on September 22.

A child attending a Japanese school died in a knife attack in Shenzhen, southern China, last week. It was the second such attack near Japanese educational institutions in the country in recent months.

Reuters reported that some Japanese companies in China had offered to send their employees and families home following the incident, saying the safety concerns came at a time of strained relations between the two countries.

Following the attack last week in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida demanded an explanation and urged China to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens.

Beijing expressed its “regret and sadness” over the incident, which it said was an isolated case and “could happen in any country”.

Japanese media reported that the boy was a 10-year-old Japanese national living in Shenzhen. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said his father was Japanese and his mother was Chinese.

Police arrested a 44-year-old man suspected of stabbing the child.

It is still unclear whether the attack was politically motivated, but it occurred on September 18, the anniversary of the “Mukden Incident” or “Manchurian Incident” of 1931, known in China as National Humiliation Day.

In June, a Japanese mother and her child were injured in another knife attack in Suzhou near Shanghai. The Chinese Foreign Ministry described the incident at the time as an “isolated case.”

A 55-year-old Chinese woman died trying to stop the attacker and was honored by the local government after her death.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated as China has become increasingly assertive in territorial disputes in the region and Japan has strengthened its security ties with the United States and its allies.

But Beijing announced last week that it would “gradually resume” imports of seafood from Japan after imposing a ban in August 2023 over the release of water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Last week, Japan announced that a Chinese aircraft carrier had sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time.

Tokyo condemned the incident as “completely unacceptable,” while China said it had complied with international law. AFP, REUTERS