A 10-year-old student at a Japanese school in southern China has died a day after being stabbed.
The boy, who was enrolled at the Shenzhen Japanese School, died from his injuries early Thursday, Japanese officials said.
His attacker, a 44-year-old man whose surname is Zhong, was arrested on the spot, said the local police.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa called the attack “reprehensible” and said Tokyo had asked Beijing for an explanation “as soon as possible”.
“This should never happen in any country,” he added.
Although neither side confirmed the victim’s nationality, the website of the Shenzhen Japanese school says “Japanese children with Japanese nationality.”
The cause of the attack was not yet known. But some observers have expressed concern that nationalist sentiment in China could spill over into an increase in violence against immigrants.
In June, a man targeted a Japanese mother and her child in the eastern city of Suzhou. That attack was near a Japanese school as well it led to the death of a Chinese man who had tried to protect the Japanese tourists.
Beijing said they were “independent incidents”. But the Japanese embassy in Beijing called on the Chinese government to “prevent such incidents from happening again”.
In early June, four American teachers were stabbed in the northern city of Jilin.
In a press conference on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Lin Jian, said that the incident of stabbing people in Shenzhen is still under investigation.
“China will continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners in the country,” he added.
Some have pointed out that the stabbing happened on the anniversary of the infamous Mukden Incident, when Japan staged an explosion to justify its invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which started a 14-year war with China.
Relations between the two countries have long been strained. For decades, the two sides have clashed over many issues, from historical grievances to territorial disputes.
A former Japanese ambassador said Wednesday’s attack in Shenzhen was “the result of years of anti-Japanese education” in Chinese schools.
“This cost the precious life of a Japanese child,” Shingo Yamagami, former Japanese ambassador to Australia, wrote in X.
Some Japanese schools in China contacted parents, putting them on the spot after the stabbing.
The Guangzhou Japanese School has canceled some activities and warned against speaking Japanese out loud in public.
Earlier this year, the Japanese government requested an estimated $2.5m (£1.9m) to hire school bus guards in China.
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