The Japanese community in Shanghai has held an emergency meeting to discuss how to ensure its safety after the fatal knife attack on a 10-year-old Japanese boy in China’s southern city of Shenzhen on Wednesday.
Shanghai has the largest Japanese community in China, with more than 37,000 Japanese residents.
People from the Japanese Consulate-General in Shanghai, Japanese schools and Japanese companies attended the gathering on Friday.
At the start of the meeting, the participants offered a silent prayer for the boy.
Consul-General Okada Masaru referred to another fatal knife attack in June that targeted the bus of a Japanese school in Suzhou, eastern China. He said the diplomatic mission will do its utmost to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals and schools. He added that the mission has asked the Chinese government to prevent a recurrence and conduct a thorough investigation.
Sunaga Kiyohide, an official of Shanghai Japanese School, said ensuring the safety of students is an overriding priority. He asked for support from the community, noting that there are some things that the school cannot do by itself.
The participants discussed how to boost safety measures and deal with the anxieties voiced by Japanese expatriates. They confirmed that they will keep sharing information.
People continued to leave flowers in front of the boy’s school in Shenzhen on Friday. The messages in Chinese included one that read “I’m sorry.”
A 44-year-old man has been detained as the suspect by Chinese authorities.
Japanese Ambassador to China Kanasugi Kenji said on Thursday that he had talked with a Chinese Foreign Ministry official about the attack. The official reportedly described the incident as an individual case involving a former convict. Kanasugi said he was not briefed on what prompted the attack or whether the perpetrator deliberately targeted a Japanese national.