Japan’s foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, has described as “despicable” the alleged killing in China of a 10-year-old Japanese boy and demanded that Chinese authorities do everything possible to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals living in the country.
The boy, who has not been named by Japanese media, died on Thursday, a day after he was allegedly stabbed about 200 metres from his school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
While it is unclear if the suspect, a 44-year-old man, targeted the boy because he was Japanese, there is concern that the incident could trigger a further deterioration in Sino-Japanese ties.
The boy killed in Shenzhen had received hospital treatment after allegedly being stabbed in the stomach, while the suspected assailant was apprehended by police officers stationed near the boy’s school, the Kyodo news agency reported, quoting Yoshiko Kijima, Japan’s consul general in Guangzhou, which is responsible for Shenzhen.
The Japanese embassy warned Japanese nationals living in China to be vigilant and take precautions.
Kamikawa described the attack as “despicable”, telling reporters in Tokyo that she was “deeply saddened” by it. She said Japan’s government had demanded that Chinese authorities “make every possible effort” to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in China and release a detailed explanation of the stabbing.
Wednesday’s attack occurred on the anniversary of the 1931 Mukden incident, in which Japanese troops staged a minor detonation on a railway track in Mukden, now Shenyang, as a precursor to Japan’s invasion and occupation of Manchuria.
Kamikawa said Japan had asked China’s foreign ministry last week to step up safety measures at Japanese schools ahead of the anniversary.
China’s foreign ministry did not comment when asked about the significance of the date, which state media said was marked with air raid sirens in multiple cities.
Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said the case was being investigated, adding that Beijing would “continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners” in the country.
Kyodo cited witnesses who said the boy was bleeding from his stab wounds and had been given heart massage at the scene.
Japan’s vice foreign minister, Masataka Okano, summoned China’s ambassador to Tokyo, Wu Jianghao, on Wednesday to voice “serious concerns” over the attack. Okano “strongly urged that security be strengthened, including around Japanese schools throughout China”, Japan’s foreign ministry said.
Local authorities in Shenzhen, which is home to 3,600 Japanese nationals, reportedly voiced regret over the boy’s death, adding that he had received “first-rate” medical care.
Relations between China and Japan have worsened in recent years over Beijing’s increasingly assertive military activity in waters around Japan, centring on a longstanding territorial dispute over the Senkakus, remote islands in the East China Sea that are administered by Japan but claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu islands.
On Wednesday, a Chinese aircraft carrier and two destroyers entered Japan’s contiguous waters for the first time, sailing between the westernmost island of Yonaguni and nearby Iriomote and prompting Tokyo to convey its “serious concerns” to Beijing.
Japan has also protested China’s ban on imports of Japanese seafood, imposed after the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began in August last year.