The unrest may accelerate the move away from China following attacks on Japanese residents

BEIJING (Mainichi) – Anxiety among Japanese residents in China could accelerate an outflow from the country following a series of incidents involving Japanese nationals, such as the recent fatal attack on a student in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

On September 18, a 10-year-old student at a Japanese school in Shenzhen was stabbed by a 44-year-old Chinese man on his way to school and died the next day. As Chinese authorities have not announced any motive or background for this incident, the concerns of the Japanese community in China have yet to be allayed. The measures taken by the Japanese government still leave much work to be done to ensure safety and security.

A 30-year-old woman whose son attends a Japanese school in Beijing told the Mainichi Shimbun: “I try not to go out as much as possible. It’s scary because we don’t even know if the attack was aimed at Japanese people or not.” She explained that when she absolutely has to go out, she checks her surroundings for suspicious people and refrains from speaking Japanese.

A 40-year-old expatriate who sends his eldest daughter to kindergarten in Beijing revealed: “When I take her to and from kindergarten, I pay attention to how she dresses so that she is not recognized as a Japanese child.” He expressed a sense of crisis, saying: “There was an incident in Suzhou (Jiangsu Province) in June, and now another one in Shenzhen. If things continue as they are, there will be a third and fourth incident.”

The top priority for parents is to keep their children safe on their way to Japanese schools and when they return home. In response to the stabbing attack on a Japanese woman, her son and a Chinese woman in Suzhou in June this year, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its 2025 budget request allocated 350 million yen (about $2.46 million) to place guard guards on school buses in Japanese schools in China. After the latest incident in Shenzhen, the ministry rushed to allocate about 43 million yen (about $302,000) in the current fiscal year to improve the safety of students boarding school buses and around schools.

There are about 3,700 students in China’s 12 Japanese schools, and some areas have a shortage of school buses. Some students walk to school, as was the case in the recent attack, so measures to ensure the safety of all students are insufficient.

At an emergency meeting at the Embassy of Japan in Beijing on September 23, attended by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yoshifumi Tsuge, officials from the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China and the Japanese School in Beijing, among others, participants made demands including “the elimination of walking to school ”

Some Japanese companies in China have started allowing their employees to return to Japan temporarily on the grounds that “the safety of expatriates in Japanese companies and their families is fundamental to maintaining operations in China,” said Tetsuro Homma, president of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China. In connection with incidents such as the arrest and prosecution of a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma Inc. by Chinese authorities for alleged espionage, as well as the deterioration of U.S.-China relations, an increasing number of companies are under internal and external pressure to review their business activities in China. The recent stabbing attack may accelerate the economic shift away from China.

There are also concerns about the deterioration of social mood in both countries. In response to the incident in Shenzhen, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on September 19 urged residents of Japan and those traveling to China to exercise caution. Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy in Japan also issued a warning on September 24 to its citizens who will visit Japan ahead of the Chinese National Day holiday season starting October 1, urging them to “exercise caution in light of the current situation.”

(Japanese original: Hideto Okazaki and Yoshinori Ogura, China General Bureau)