Japanese mother and child attacked with knife in town near Shanghai

By: Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) — A Japanese woman and her child were stabbed in a Chinese city near Shanghai, one of numerous knife attacks in a country where violence is rare.

An unknown man attacked the Japanese woman and her child at a bus stop in the city of Suzhou on Monday afternoon, the Japanese embassy in China said. The suspect, who appeared to be a Chinese national, was arrested, the embassy said in a statement.

The attack follows a series of stabbings across China in recent weeks. Earlier this month, four US university lecturers were stabbed to death in a public park in the northern Chinese city of Jilin. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was an isolated incident. The series of attacks sparked reactions from Chinese social media users, with some linking the incidents to discontent over the economic downturn.

The Japanese embassy said stabbings in public places have been reported across China in recent days and urged citizens to be aware of their surroundings. Suzhou police were unable to immediately respond to a request for comment.

The knife incident could be a setback for relations between China and Japan, which have been rocked by disputes over Tokyo’s discharge of treated nuclear waste and the Senkaku Islands, which both sides claim as their own.

Nevertheless, Japanese companies are the largest source of foreign direct investment in China, although the willingness of these firms to pump new money into the country is declining significantly amid the weaker Chinese economy and increasing geopolitical tensions. There are currently eleven Japanese schools in mainland China.

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