A suspected suspect in the Tokyo shrine graffiti case has reportedly been arrested in China

A Chinese man suspected of being involved in a graffiti incident at the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo earlier this year has been arrested by Chinese authorities, local media reported on Tuesday.

In July, Tokyo police put Dong Guangming on the wanted list. They accused him of spraying the English words “toilet” on a stone pillar of the Shinto facility on the night of May 31. One day after the incident, he left the country and went to China.

According to reports, police in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, arrested an influencer nicknamed “Iron Head” on suspicion of being involved in an alleged extortion case.

After the vandalism was discovered on June 1, a video of a man claiming to be Iron Head painting the graffiti on the shrine was shared online.

Japanese investigators believe that two other Chinese were involved in the incident. They charged Jiang Zhuojun, who lives in Japan, with property damage and disrespect towards a place of worship and obtained an arrest warrant for Xu Laiyu, who had travelled to China with Dong.

Tokyo police believe Xu shot the video and Jiang bought the spray paint used by Dong.

Yasukuni Square has long been a source of diplomatic friction with China and other Asian countries because it honors not only Japanese soldiers who died in the war, but also their wartime leaders who were convicted as war criminals by an international tribunal after World War II.

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