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Beijing blacks out anti-Japan
protests By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - As anti-Japanese protests
continued for a third day in a row Tuesday,
government censors imposed a news blackout on
coverage of protests, signaling that Beijing was
trying to contain further damage to already
strained Sino-Japanese relations.
None of
the nation's thousands of newspapers, television
stations and news websites carried any details of
the protests that took the capital by storm on
Saturday. On Sunday, hundreds of full-gear riot
police blocked access to the diplomatic quarter in
downtown Beijing, but avoided direct confrontation
with protesters. In sharp contrast with the
full blast of anti-Japanese propaganda a few weeks
ago when national media covered extensively
China's grassroots campaign to block Japan's bid
for a permanent seat in the United Nations
Security Council, this time they avoided any
mention of the riots that had spread over China.
In a country where little public
expression of political sentiment is tolerated,
the magnitude and continuity of anti-Japan marches
were seen by many as an indication of real
antipathy at the top towards Japan's emerging
military profile in the region and its ambitions
to join the Security Council.
But with
strong interest in maintaining the economic
integration between the two countries, Beijing
appears unprepared, for the time being, to
exchange icy diplomatic relations for direct
conflict. The news blackout came as Japan's
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi protested Monday
against the damage inflicted by the riots and
warned that relations between the two Asian powers
had hit a new low.
"It is very
regrettable. This kind of thing must not be
allowed to happen," Koizumi said of the damage
caused by the protesters. "China is responsible
for the safety of Japanese people who are working
in China. I would like them to be well aware of
this."
Koizumi's top spokesman said Monday
Tokyo was seriously concerned by the
demonstrations. "We are deeply troubled by the
recent developments," chief cabinet secretary
Hiroyuki Hosoda said. "We are next-door neighbors
and our diplomatic relations are extremely
important. We should not let misunderstandings
grow."
In recent weeks the two countries
have crossed swords on political and economic
issues, such as Tokyo's decision to discontinue
economic aid to Beijing, competition for energy
supplies and China's grassroots opposition towards
Japan's bid to for a permanent seat on the
Security Council.
Chinese anger focuses on
the visits of Koizumi and other Japanese leaders
to the Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals are
commemorated alongside Japan's war dead. China
says this proves Japan has not truly repented for
its militarist World War II past. Beijing refuses
to hold bilateral summits with Koizumi until he
stops the pilgrimages.
But Japan says
China has wantonly downplayed generous packages of
aid it has received from Japan - some 3,000
billion yen (US$27 billion) since 1980, and is
stoking anti-Japanese nationalist sentiment as
ways of boosting its fading ideological authority.
Saturday's protest was the largest Beijing
had seen since 1999, when angry crowds pelted the
US Embassy following the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization attack on the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the Kosovo campaign.
Some 10,000 people - mostly students,
marched across Beijing in protest against Japan's
approval of revised history textbooks that critics
say whitewash Japan's brutal wartime colonization
of Asian nations. Later, some 1,000 people
besieged the Japanese diplomatic compound,
throwing rocks and eggs and shouting, "Japanese
pigs come out" and "stop distorting history".
Sunday and Monday saw more marches in
Beijing and rallies of support in the southern
cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, where protesters
called for the boycott of Japanese goods and threw
eggs at Japanese restaurants. In Shanghai, two
Japanese students were beaten up in a bar.
A survey released Monday found that 96% of
Chinese saw Japan's revision of history textbooks
as an "insult to the Chinese people". Ninety-seven
percent of those surveyed by the Social Survey
Institute of China demanded an apology from Tokyo.
"Japan is the outmost target of
nationalistic sentiment in China," said Victor
Yuan, who runs a semi-official company conducting
public surveys and marketing research in Beijing.
Increasingly, he said, the outpouring of
anti-Japanese sentiment could also have commercial
implications.
"Our probes show that among
people who had never before used Japanese goods,
some 24% now say they would boycott Japanese
products. The figure last year was only 10%," he
said.
A trade association for Chinese
chain stores called last week for a boycott of
beer, coffee, cars and other products made by
Japanese companies like Asahi and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries, which it claims supported the
controversial textbook revision.
Some
14,000 Japanese companies are estimated to be
operating in China and continuing hostilities
could have chilling ramifications for bilateral
ties. Economic ties so far have been the only
stabilizing factor in relations across the East
China Sea. In 2004, Sino-Japanese trade grew to
$168 billion, a 26% jump from a year earlier.
Many in Beijing expressed anger at the
news blackout of the anti-Japanese protests.
"Our government is too weak," grumbled
Yang Xiaodong, a 40-something Beijinger who
described himself as self-employed. "They should
keep the media blasting for a week, or even for
two weeks, until everybody in China and the whole
word takes notice." But Chinese leaders may
fear, too, that continuous anti-Japan
demonstrations could trigger protests about
broader social grievances, speculated a university
professor who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Just two months ago, Chinese communist
leaders refused to let people come out and
publicly commemorate the late Zhao Ziyang [the
purged party leader who sympathized with the 1989
Tiananmen student demonstrators]. They know that
wound is still fresh and could easily open," the
professor said. '. "They don't want protests to
turn against them."
(Inter Press Service) |
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