BEIJING, CHINA — China has handed down death sentences in two separate cases involving fatal attacks on Japanese citizens, raising concerns among the expatriate community. These rulings coincide with a recent series of high-profile executions in the country.
A Chinese man received the death penalty for fatally stabbing a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen in September.
This sentencing, announced on Friday according to Japanese media, follows another death sentence issued the previous day in Suzhou province.
In the Suzhou case, a Chinese man killed a Chinese woman who intervened to protect a Japanese mother and child from his attack outside a Japanese school in June.
These incidents are two of three attacks targeting foreigners in China last year. Just days before the Suzhou incident, four American college instructors were injured in a knife attack in a Jilin public park. The Shenzhen attack prompted Japanese companies like Toshiba and Toyota to advise their employees to exercise caution, with Panasonic even offering employees flights home.
The Suzhou court attributed the attacker’s actions to personal struggles, citing job loss and subsequent debt as contributing factors to his “loss of the will to live.” While Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed the court’s verdict of “intentional murder” and its emphasis on the crime’s “significant social impact,” he noted that the ruling made no specific mention of Japan.
Japanese consulate officials from Shanghai were present at the sentencing. Hayashi condemned the attack on “innocent people,” including a child, as “absolutely unforgivable” and paid tribute to Hu Youping, the Chinese bus attendant who died protecting the Japanese mother and child.
Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning briefly addressed the Suzhou case, stating it was “in judicial process” and reiterating China’s commitment to “protect the safety of foreign nationals in China.”
These incidents occur against a backdrop of increasing public violence in China, with a rise in “revenge on society” attacks where perpetrators target strangers due to personal grievances. Reported attacks on pedestrians and strangers have seen a marked increase, rising from single digits to 19 in the past year.
This trend coincides with recent executions for other violent crimes, including a man executed for a car attack that resulted in at least 35 deaths, believed to be the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.
A man responsible for a university stabbing spree resulting in eight deaths was also recently sentenced to death, as was another individual who injured 30 people by driving into a crowd.
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