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 “immediately”.
Although neither side confirmed the nationality of the victim, the website of the Shenzhen Japanese School says “Japanese children with Japanese nationality.”
The cause of the attack was not yet known.
It comes on the anniversary of the infamous Mukden incident, where Japan staged an explosion to justify its invasion of Manchuria in 1931, which started a 14-year war with China.
This should never happen in any country,” said Kimikawa.
The stabbing incident in Shenzhen follows a similar knife attack in June, when a man targeted a Japanese mother and her child in the eastern city of Suzhou.
The Japanese embassy in Beijing issued a statement on Thursday asking the Chinese government to “prevent similar incidents from happening again”.
In a press conference on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Lin Jian, said that the case is being investigated.
“China will continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners in the country,” he added.
Relations between Japan and China have long been contentious – for decades the two sides have clashed over a range of issues, from historical grievances to territorial disputes.
Some observers have expressed concern that nationalistic sentiments in China could spill over into an increase in violence against immigrants.
The knife attack in Suzhou in June was also near a Japanese school it led to the death of a Chinese man who had tried to protect a Japanese mother and her child. Earlier that month, four American teachers were stabbed in the northern city of Jilin.
China described both as “isolated incidents”.
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 have contacted parents, putting them on the spot after the stabbing in Shenzhen.
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.
On Chinese social media, there was some criticism of the incident with one user commenting that “violence is not patriotism.”