A student stabbed near a Japanese school in China has died, Japanese officials say

BEIJING (AP) — Japanese authorities said Thursday that a 10-year-old student at a Japanese school in southern China who was attacked the previous day had died. They called on Beijing to release details of the stabbing 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.

Kamikawa said she had also ordered Japanese schools in China to review their security measures and called on 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,” Lin said.

The motive for the attack in the city of Shenzhen was not immediately clear.

In an email to Japanese citizens living in China, the Japanese embassy urged residents to be vigilant and take precautions. Knife attacks have occurred in recent months. The Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, which has jurisdiction over Shenzhen, called for measures to prevent such incidents.

On 24 June a knife attack at a school bus stop An attack on a Japanese school in the southeastern city of Suzhou killed a Chinese citizen who tried to stop the attacker and injured a Japanese mother and her child.

At the beginning of June, a Chinese man stabbed four US university lecturers in a public park in Jilin in the northeast and a Chinese man who tried to intervene. The four lecturers from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University. None of them were in critical condition.