Tokyo demands protection from Beijing for its expats after child murder

Tokyo/Beijing, September 24 (EFE). – Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa called on her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to ensure the safety of Japanese living in China and combat hate speech on social media following the murder of a Japanese child in Shenzhen last week.

Kamikawa conveyed this request to the Chinese Foreign Minister during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The Japanese foreign minister asked Chinese authorities for further explanations on the incident and demanded measures to prevent the spread of “comments on social media that could directly affect the safety of children,” the Japanese foreign ministry reported in a statement.

Kamikawa told Wang she did not want the incident to be “an obstacle to relations between the two countries,” which have cooled recently following Chinese military exercises on Japanese territory and Beijing's rapprochement with Moscow following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Wang said he had promised Kamikawa that Beijing would pursue the attack on the Japanese minor “in accordance with the law” and “protect the safety of all foreign citizens in China as it always does,” the country's foreign ministry said.

The minister also called on Japan to “remain calm” in dealing with the matter and to do so “rationally and without politicization or exaggeration.”

The boy, a student at the Japanese School in Shenzhen, was attacked on his way to class on Wednesday, the day commemorating the start of the Japanese invasion of China in 1931.

The attacker, a 44-year-old man with a criminal record, was arrested by local authorities.

This attack follows an attack in June in the Chinese city of Suzhou in which a Japanese mother and her son were stabbed while waiting for a school bus and a Chinese citizen who stood between the victims and the attacker died trying to defend them.

Kamikawa and Wang also addressed the discharge of contaminated and treated water from the Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Japan had previously agreed to accept additional long-term monitoring of this measure in cooperation with China and the International Atomic Energy Agency. In return, Beijing lifted its veto on imports of Japanese shipping products.

The Japanese foreign minister said the oil spill had “scientific reasons,” while Wang reiterated his call for Tokyo to “fulfill its obligations and avoid unnecessary problems” caused by the spill. EFE

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