False claims of Chinese crime wave in Japan ignite outrage after boy’s stabbing

The social media post was angry, antagonistic and immediately went viral.

Shared on X on September 21 – just days after a Japanese boy of 10 was stabbed to death in Shenzhen, China – the post claimed that 60 per cent of all crimes in Japan are committed by Chinese nationals.

“A Chinese man robbed a woman in Japan and seriously injured her,” read the post by a user named MR. 486. “Chinese already account for three out of every five criminal offences in Japan. Do you think the Chinese should be driven back to China?” The Chinese-language message quickly attracted more than 697,000 views, 4,406 “likes” and was reposted 701 times.

It was, however, completely false.

Media and political analysts who spoke to This Week in Asia called it “deeply worrying” that so many social media users liked or shared the disinformation, reflecting a spiralling lack of trust between the people of China and Japan, compounded by escalating nationalist sentiment on both sides.

The Asia Fact Check Lab debunked the falsehood in an article published by Radio Free Asia. According to Japanese police statistics, Chinese nationals were involved in only 1.123 per cent of all prosecutions in Japan last year, accounting for a mere 1.135 per cent of all suspects.