Concerns Remain 1 Year after Fatal Stabbing of Japanese Boy in China

Hong Kong, Sept. 18 (Jiji Press)--Japanese citizens in China remain concerned about their safety one year after a 10-year-old boy was stabbed to death on his way to a Japanese school in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

"We're always worried," a Japanese expatriate said, citing concerns that a similar incident will happen again. In the trial of the attacker in the Shenzhen incident, a Chinese man, it was not made clear whether he intentionally targeted Japanese people.

The number of children attending the Japanese school in Shenzhen had dropped to 205 as of August from 273 in April last year.

In response to the incident, security measures have been increased around the school and at school bus stops. Public security vehicles monitor the area, and authorities question passers-by.

There are concerns that anti-Japanese sentiment would rise in China around Thursday, the date when the Mukden incident, which led to Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the current northeastern China, occurred 94 years ago. The administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping regards this year as the 80th anniversary of the country's victory over Japan in World War II.

The Shenzhen Japanese school closes on Thursday and Friday. Japanese schools in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, and Shanghai switched their classes online on Thursday.

The boy died one day after being stabbed in the abdomen on Sept. 18 last year.

In January, a Shenzhen court sentenced the attacker to death, claiming that he committed an extremely vicious act in which he killed an innocent child to gain attention online. He has been executed.

In June last year, a Japanese mother and her child were injured by a knife-wielding man while waiting for a school bus in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. A Chinese bus attendant was killed in the incident. The man has been sentenced to death and executed.
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