Shenzhen, China: 10-year-old student killed in new knife attack in China near Japanese school

Hong Kong/Tokyo
CNN
—

A ten-year-old boy who attends a Japanese school in southern China was stabbed to death on his way to school on Wednesday, Tokyo's foreign minister said. It was the second knife attack near a Japanese school in the country in recent months.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the boy was attacked by a man about 200 meters from the gates of the Japanese school in Shenzhen, a technology metropolis home to many Japanese companies.

A 44-year-old suspect was arrested at the scene and taken into custody, city police said.

Japanese and Chinese authorities have not specified the victim's nationality, but according to the Shenzhen Japanese School website, Japanese citizenship is a requirement for enrollment in the school.

“The fact that such a despicable act was committed against a child on his way to school is truly regrettable,” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters on Thursday.

“We take this incident extremely seriously and have again called on the Chinese side to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals.”

The attack came on a sensitive date, namely the anniversary of the “918” incident in 1931, when Japanese soldiers blew up a Japanese railway line in northeastern China under the pretext of invading the region.

This emotional day is celebrated in China as the beginning of the Japanese invasion, with state media and politicians urging the public never to forget this national humiliation.

Chinese authorities did not reveal the motive for Wednesday's attack. But nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Japanese sentiments are on the rise in the country, often fuelled by state media.

In June, a Chinese man injured a Japanese woman and her child in a knife attack in front of a school bus in Suzhou, eastern China. A Chinese bus attendant who tried to intervene later succumbed to her injuries.

Following the attack, the Japanese Foreign Ministry asked Japanese schools to review their security measures, Kamikawa said.

Ahead of the 918th anniversary, “we had just asked the Chinese Foreign Ministry to take comprehensive measures to ensure the safety of Japanese schools. Therefore, we are extremely disappointed that this incident occurred under these circumstances,” she added.

At a regular press conference on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the case was under investigation.

“China will continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners in China,” he added.

Public attacks on foreigners have been rare in China, but a series of spectacular stabbings in recent months have raised concerns.

Two weeks before the attack on the Japanese mother and her child in Suzhou, four American university lecturers were stabbed to death by a Chinese man in a public park in Jilin, in the northeast of the United States, after he collided with one of them, according to Chinese police.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry described both attacks as isolated incidents and provided no further information on the motives.