Japanese boy stabbed to death in China dies

Text size

ADDS Background

A Japanese boy who was stabbed on his way to school in China died on Thursday, Tokyo Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said. The incident has increased tensions between the neighboring countries.

“I cannot help but feel deep sadness after learning that the child died before dawn,” she told reporters, condemning the act as “despicable.”

Police in Shenzhen said a man attacked a minor on Wednesday morning and the child was taken to hospital. The suspect, a 44-year-old man, was arrested, they said.

Japanese media reported that the boy was a 10-year-old Japanese national who lived in the southern Chinese city and was attacked near a Japanese school.

Late Wednesday, before the boy died, Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Masataka Okano summoned China's ambassador to Japan, Wu Jianghao, to express his “grave concern” about the attack.

Okano urged security to be strengthened, including around Japanese schools throughout China, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

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 while trying to stop the attacker. She was honored by the local government after her death for her efforts.

Kamikawa said on Thursday that the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, near Shenzhen, had also demanded an explanation from China over the recent incidents.

“I take this case extremely seriously,” she said.

The minister did not comment on the possibility that the attacker specifically targeted a Japanese citizen.

Wednesday was the anniversary of the “Mukden Incident” or “Manchurian Incident” on September 18, 1931 – the capture of a city in northeastern China by Japanese troops, followed by the invasion of the wider region.

In this event in the run-up to World War II, Japanese soldiers used an explosion on a railway line as a pretext to occupy the city of Mukden (now Shenyang).

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also did not comment at a regular press conference on the significance of the date, which, according to state media, was marked by air raid sirens in several cities on Wednesday.

Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing have escalated in recent years as China has taken a more assertive stance in the region, including in territorial disputes, and Japan has built security ties with the United States and its allies.

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

Government spokesman Hiroshi Moriya described the incident as “completely unacceptable from the perspective of the security situation in Japan and the region.”

“We have communicated our serious concerns to the Chinese side through diplomatic channels,” he said.

China said the passage, which came less than a month after the first confirmed incursion of a Chinese surveillance aircraft into Japanese airspace, was in line with international law.

stu-kh-kaf/mca