The number of students enrolled in Japanese schools in China declined over 10 percent in the academic year starting April from a year earlier, as Tuesday marked the first anniversary of a knife attack near Shanghai in which Japanese nationals were injured.
According to data compiled by Tokyo-based Japan Overseas Educational Services and others, the number of students at the 11 Japanese schools in mainland China nosedived in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic before a recovery trend began in the following year.
However, the 2025 school year saw a decrease in the number of students amid an economic slump in China and safety concerns shared by Japanese expatriate communities after the knife attack in Suzhou in June last year and a fatal stabbing of a 10-year-old Japanese boy in Shenzhen, southern China, in September.
A man (foreground) believed to be a plainclothes security personnel is seen on June 19, 2025, at the bus stop in Suzhou in China’s Jiangsu Province where a knife attack took place a year ago. (Kyodo)
On June 24 last year, a 52-year-old unemployed Chinese man named Zhou Jiasheng stabbed a Japanese mother and her child and killed Chinese bus attendant Hu Youping, 54, who came to their assistance at a Japanese school bus stop in the Jiangsu Province city. Zhou was later convicted and executed earlier this year.
Local authorities and the Japanese school in Suzhou have stepped up security measures since the stabbing, with several security officials deployed at the educational institution, aboard school buses and at the bus stop.
“We feel safe with the presence of the security officials, but cannot let our guard down,” a mother of a Japanese school student said. “I always tell my child to be vigilant and run away if a suspicious person is spotted nearby.”
A police motorbike is permanently stationed on a street dotted with Japanese restaurants near the Japanese school in Suzhou in China’s Jiangsu Province, as seen on June 19, 2025. (Kyodo)
“If children face danger again, I will let my family return to Japan as soon as possible,” a father of a student said.
As this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of what Beijing calls the 1937-1945 War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, it is feared public sentiment toward Japanese nationals in China could worsen.
A mother of a student at the Suzhou Japanese school was wary of Japanese children in China being at risk again, with a new movie featuring the Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious Unit 731 scheduled to be released on July 31.
The unit undertook biological and chemical warfare research in northeastern China during World War II, according to historians.
Related coverage:
China school bus stop murderer executed: Japanese gov’t
Japanese schoolboy killer in China executed: source
