A woman laying flowers outside the Shenzhen Japanese School after a 10-year-old Japanese boy was fatally stabbed on his way to class. - PHOTO: REUTERS
SHENZHEN/BEIJING: One by one, they laid flowers at the gate of a Japanese school in Shenzhen, which was strikingly quiet even as nearby streets filled with children heading home from class.
A trickle of residents in the southern Chinese tech hub paid tribute to a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy who died in the early hours of Sept 19, after being stabbed in the street on his way to class a day earlier.
This was the second knife attack involving Japanese nationals in China since June.
In the latest development, The Japanese Embassy in China held an emergency meeting late on Thursday with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, the Beijing Japanese School and other stakeholders, it said in a statement, following the death of a Japanese child who was stabbed on Wednesday.
“It’s really sad. It shouldn’t be like that,” said a Shenzhen local, who gave his name only as Mr Tang.
Mr Tang, his wife and 12-year-old son, who attends another school nearby, laid a bouquet on the afternoon of Sept 19.
Speaking to reporters in Tokyo on the same day, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa denounced the attack as a “despicable act”, adding that Japan has asked the Chinese authorities for an explanation.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, during a visit to Ishikawa prefecture in central Japan, said: “Such an incident must never be repeated. We strongly urged the Chinese side to ensure the safety of Japanese people.”
A man bringing flowers to the Shenzhen Japanese School after the fatal stabbing on Sept 19. PHOTO: REUTERS
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian expressed China’s “regret and sadness” over the incident, as well as condolences on the boy’s passing. He said the case is being investigated, and that Beijing and Tokyo were in communication.
Shenzhen police apprehended a 44-year-old man, surnamed Zhong, at the scene of the stabbing about 200m from the Shenzhen Japanese School, which the boy attended. The police have not disclosed the reasons for the attack on the boy, whose surname they said was Shen.
The Japanese national’s father is Japanese, and his mother is Chinese, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Sept 19.
The stabbing took place 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 commemorates the start of the invasion on Sept 18 with air raid sirens and local exhibitions. On social media, netizens urged others not to forget this “national humiliation”.
The attack comes just three months after a knife attack on a Japanese woman and her child on June 24, near another Japanese school in eastern China’s Suzhou. 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.
Weeks earlier on June 10, four American college instructors were stabbed in a public park in north-east China’s Jilin province.
While the Chinese Foreign Ministry called them “isolated incidents” that could have occurred in any country, these attacks on foreigners have nonetheless stoked fears about growing anti-foreigner and anti-Japanese sentiments, which could be spilling over from online vitriol into physical violence.
Japanese media have noted a growing sense of unease within the Japanese community in China.
The Nikkei newspaper reported that a Japanese school in Beijing had, in an e-mail message to parents, advised against speaking Japanese too loudly in public spaces and allowing their children to go out alone.
The authorities have beefed up security at other Japanese schools around China, The Japan News reported.
At the Shenzhen Japanese School, classes were suspended on Sept 19. Near the school’s gate, a retired teacher who declined to be named said in Mandarin: “This child, no matter which country he is from, is the hope of a family, and of a nation.
“It is a crime,” she said of the stabbing, tearing up after she offered a bouquet of chrysanthemums at the school gate.
In Beijing, the Japanese Embassy flew its flag at half-mast on Sept 19. ST PHOTO: MICHELLE NG
Mainstream media in China have not reported widely on the stabbing. But mother-of-two Sheerlin Fan, who lives in the area, learnt about the incident from parent group chats, after seeing ambulances and police cars.
Ms Fan, who is in her 40s, said that she was heartbroken to learn of the fatal stabbing.
“I think this is one person’s extreme behaviour,” she told The Straits Times. “It does not represent the mentality of ordinary Chinese people, much less the mindset of most of us in Shenzhen.”
“At the same time, this makes me reflect as a parent – that in educating my children, I must let them have a humanitarian and objective view before they enter society.”
In Beijing, the Japanese Embassy flew its flag at half-mast on Sept 19.
A day earlier in Tokyo, Japan’s Vice-Foreign Minister Masataka Okano summoned the Chinese Ambassador to convey deep concerns.
Tensions between China and Japan have intensified in recent years, exacerbated by intensifying Sino-US tensions and a complicated history – and the tragic stabbing in Shenzhen is unlikely to help.
But it is a “very small and incidental event” as far as the broader Sino-Japanese relationship is concerned, said professor of international relations Shi Yinhong at Renmin University in Beijing.
It reflects, at the most, the “bad state of the feelings” held by Chinese and Japanese people towards each other, he added.
University of Tokyo’s Shin Kawashima told ST that while it was difficult to comment without more details about the stabbings, “it is clear that Japanese children were targeted in Suzhou and Shenzhen, and that such incidents had not been seen before”.
“These incidents have been widely reported in Japan, further aggravating sentiment towards China, and expatriates in China may take steps such as sending their families home,” said the professor of international relations.
“Both countries must mourn the dead and work to prevent a recurrence of the incidents,” he said, noting the urgency to “prevent a chain reaction of such incidents and escalation of public sentiments”.
* Additional reporting by Michelle Ng in Beijing - The Straits Times/ANN
