Some Japanese firms in China offer to send staff home after stabbing, employees say

“It is a really heavy shock,” the executive told Reuters. “And this is another instance where a Japanese school was targeted.”

“As for the temporary leaving, yes, that is true, and many Japanese companies will do so,” he said. “We need to know why this happened again … otherwise, we can’t live and work here.”

China’s foreign ministry on Thursday expressed its condolences to the victim’s family, and called the crime “an individual case”.

Japan has urged the Chinese government to do its utmost to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals there, as well as provide details on the incident, the Japanese embassy said.

The embassy did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

On Wednesday, a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong stabbed the 10-year-old boy on his way to school. The boy, who was a Japanese national born to a Japanese father and a Chinese mother, died a day later.

The assailant has confessed to attacking the boy and had previously been arrested in 2015 on the charge of destroying public telecoms facilities, Chinese media reported on Friday.