Japan sends senior official to China over fatal knife attack on boy in Shenzhen

TOKYO – Japan's deputy foreign minister will talk to Beijing on Sept. 23 about the fatal knife attack on a student, the Tokyo Foreign Ministry said.

From September 22 to 24, Japan's Foreign Minister Yoshifumi Tsuge will visit Beijing “to address the death of a child at the Japanese school Shenzhen,” the ministry said in a statement on September 22.

Following the attack last week in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida demanded an explanation and urged China to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens.

Beijing expressed its “regret and sadness” over the incident, which it said was an isolated case and “could happen in any country”.

According to public broadcaster NHK, Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa is also planning to meet with her Chinese counterpart in New York while both are visiting the US city.

Japanese media reported that the boy was a 10-year-old Japanese citizen living in Shenzhen. Beijing's Foreign Ministry said his parents were Japanese and Chinese citizens respectively.

Police arrested a 44-year-old man suspected of stabbing the child.

It is still unclear whether the attack was politically motivated, but it occurred on September 18, the anniversary of the “Mukden Incident” or “Manchurian Incident” of 1931, known in China as National Humiliation Day.

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 trying to stop the attacker and was honored by the local government after her death.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated as China has become increasingly assertive in territorial disputes in the region and Japan has strengthened its security ties with the United States and its allies.

But Beijing announced last week that it would “gradually resume” imports of seafood from Japan after imposing an import ban in August last year due to the release of water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

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

Tokyo condemned the incident as “completely unacceptable,” while China said it had complied with international law. AFP