The wave of knife attacks continues in China, where the latest victim was a 10-year-old boy attending a Japanese school in the southern part of the country.
The attack occurred on a sensitive date for China, the anniversary of the “918” incident in 1931, when Japanese soldiers blew up a Japanese-owned railway in the northeast under the pretext of occupying the area.
This emotionally charged day is commemorated in China as the beginning of the Japanese invasion, with state media and officials urging the public to never forget the national humiliation.
Chinese authorities did not disclose the motive for the attack. However, nationalism, xenophobia, and anti-Japanese sentiment are on the rise in the country, often stoked by state media.
How the attack happened
The boy was stabbed on his way to class on Wednesday (September 18), according to Tokyo’s Foreign Ministry, marking the second knife attack near a Japanese school in the country in recent months.
The attack was carried out by a man about 200 meters from the gates of the Japanese school in Shenzhen, a technology hub metropolis where many Japanese businesses are based.
A 44-year-old suspect was arrested at the scene and taken into custody, the city’s police stated in a report.
In June, a Chinese man injured a Japanese woman and her child in a knife attack in front of a school bus in Suzhou, eastern China. A Chinese bus attendant who tried to intervene later died from her injuries.
Following that attack, Japan’s Foreign Ministry advised Japanese schools to reevaluate their security measures.
China’s Foreign Ministry described the two attacks as isolated incidents.