Japanese boy dies after being stabbed in southern China

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A 10-year-old Japanese boy stabbed on his way to school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has died of his injuries, signaling likely further strain on Sino-Japanese ties, Japanese media reported on Thursday.

The boy, who has a Japanese father and a Chinese mother, was attacked while with his mother near a Japanese school in Shenzhen on Wednesday morning, and was taken to hospital, where he died Thursday.

Police are holding a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Some 3,600 Japanese nationals reside in Shenzhen, an industrial city near the border with Hong Kong.

Tokyo slammed the incident as "despicable." It comes just three months after a knife attack on a Japanese mother and child in the eastern city of Suzhou in June.

Eyewitnesses said the boy was bleeding from the stab wounds and was given a heart massage at the scene, according to Japan's Kyodo News.

Nationalist rhetoric

Commentators blamed the attack on a steady output of nationalistic rhetoric under the government of Xi Jinping in recent years.

"It's caused by the Chinese authorities' incitement of so-called nationalism," said Khubis, a Japan-based Chinese national and ethnic Mongolian.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party's propaganda arm has been churning out anti-Japanese rhetoric for years, current affairs commentator Lu Jun said.

"The authorities have launched wave after wave of xenophobia in recent years, anti-American, anti-Japanese and anti-Western in nature," Lu said. "A lot of people have been encouraged by this propaganda and have gradually lost their common sense and even their humanity, turning into the thugs and minions of the authorities."

Stepped up security

Tokyo on Thursday said the government was "deeply saddened," and called on China to ensure the safety of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens who live in the country.

The Japanese flag was flown at half-mast at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Thursday in mourning. Ambassador Kenji Kanasugi was en route to Shenzhen, Japanese media reported.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government “has been and will continue to strongly urge China to share information related to the attack and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in China,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Describing the attack on the boy as "a despicable act," Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa ordered Japanese officials to craft measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya announced on Wednesday that the government will allocate 350 million yen (US$2.45 million) from April 2025 to step up security measures linked around Japanese schools in China.

The attack came on the 93rd anniversary of the 1931 Japanese bombing of a railroad track in northeastern China that Japan used as an excuse to invade Manchuria. Tokyo had asked Beijing to step up safety measures around Japanese schools ahead of the sensitive anniversary, Kamikawa said in comments reported by Kyodo.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the boy was a student at the Shenzhen Japanese School.

"[He] was stabbed by a man at a spot about 200 meters from the school gate," Lin told reporters on Wednesday, adding that "all-out efforts" were being made to save the boy.

“The perpetrator was caught at the scene,” Lin said. “The case is under investigation and relevant authorities of China will handle the case in accordance with the law.”

Shockwaves

Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, said the incident has sent shockwaves through political circles in Japan.

"Both the left and the right, the conservatives and the liberals, the government and the opposition are very angry about this incident," Yang told RFA Mandarin in an interview after the boy's death.

The attack comes ahead of Japanese general elections on Oct. 31, and will likely stoke anti-China sentiment during the campaign period, he said.

He said Japanese companies are likely to step up their withdrawal from China.

"I believe that this incident will have an even bigger impact on economic, cultural and interpersonal exchanges between the two countries," Yang said. 

"Politically, Japan may come up with some tougher slogans, but whether it will take a tougher stance in its foreign policy is still hard to predict," he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.