In Shenzhen, the fatal knife attack on a Japanese student is mourned quietly

SHENZHEN/BEIJING – One by one, they laid flowers at the gate of a Japanese school in Shenzhen. The place was remarkably quiet, even though the streets around the building were filled with children on their way home from class.

Some residents of the southern Chinese technology hub paid their last respects to a 10-year-old Japanese student who died in the early hours of September 19 after being stabbed to death on the street on his way to school a day earlier.

This was the second knife attack by Japanese citizens in China since June.

“It's really sad. It shouldn't be like this,” said a Shenzhen local who gave his name only as Mr. Tang.

He, his wife and his 12-year-old son, who attends another school nearby, laid a bouquet of flowers on the afternoon of September 19.

On the same day, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, speaking to reporters in Tokyo, condemned the attack as a “despicable act” and added that Japan had asked Chinese authorities for an explanation.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a visit to Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan: “Such an incident must never be repeated. We have urged the Chinese side to ensure the safety of the Japanese people.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian expressed China's “regret and sorrow” over the incident and offered condolences over the boy's death. He said the case was under investigation and Beijing and Tokyo were in contact.

Shenzhen police arrested a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong at the scene of the stabbing, about 200 meters from the Shenzhen Japanese School where the boy attended. Police have not disclosed the motives for the attack on the boy, whose surname was reported to be Shen.

The Japanese citizen's father is Japanese and his mother is Chinese, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on September 19.

The stabbing occurred on the 93rd anniversary of the “918 Incident” or “Mukden Incident,” a false flag operation by Japanese troops in 1931 that eventually led to a full-scale invasion of China in 1937.

China commemorated the start of the invasion on September 18 with air raid sirens and local exhibitions. On social media, netizens urged others not to forget this “national humiliation.”

The attack came just three months after a Japanese woman and her child were stabbed near another Japanese school in Suzhou, eastern China, on June 24. Their injuries were not life-threatening, but Chinese school bus attendant Hu Youping died trying to protect them. Police arrested a Chinese man at the scene.

A few weeks earlier, on June 10, four American university professors were stabbed to death in a public park in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin.

Although the Chinese Foreign Ministry spoke of “isolated cases” that could have occurred in any country, the attacks on foreigners are fueling concerns that there could be growing anti-foreigner and anti-Japanese sentiments that could escalate from online hatred into physical violence.