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China Sees New Japan Protests as Tokyo Complains
 
swissinfo  
April 10, 2005 2:05 PM
 
China Sees New Japan Protests as Tokyo Complains
 
By Scott Hillis

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters in two southernChinese cities marched on a Japanese consulate on Sunday andthrew paint and bottles at businesses selling Japanese goods, aday after anti-Tokyo demonstrations in Beijing turned violent.

The protests in Guangzhou province were the latest eruptionof anger at what many Chinese see as Tokyo's whitewashing ofWorld War II atrocities and its bid for a permanent seat on theU.N. Security Council.

On Saturday, an estimated 10,000 people gathered at Japan'sembassy and the ambassador's residence, throwing rocks, bottlesand eggs in the biggest public outpouring of anger againstforeigners since the 1998 NATO bombing of China's embassy inBelgrade.

The fresh demonstrations came as Japanese Foreign MinisterNobutaka Machimura summoned the Chinese ambassador in Tokyo andtold him the stoning of Japan's embassy and official residenceon Saturday was a "serious problem."

Earlier, Japan's ambassador to China called the protests inBeijing "gravely regrettable" and called on Beijing to protectJapanese nationals and businesses.

Anti-Japan sentiment has been running high since Tuesday,when Japan approved a textbook critics say glosses over brutalJapanese occupation of China from 1931 to 1945.

Hong Kong's Cable TV said several thousand people marchedin the provincial capital of Guangzhou, with some protesterstrying to break through a police barricade outside Japan'sconsulate and others hurling things at Japanese restaurants andshops.

Cable TV footage showed crowds, mostly young men, holdingup defaced Japanese flags, then stamping on them or burningthem.

In the nearby city of Shenzhen on the border with HongKong, a group of about 500 demonstrators marched in downtownshopping districts, chanting anti-Japan slogans and throwingpaint and plastic bottles at Japanese restaurants, a Reuterswitness said.

On Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry appealed to protestersto be "calm and sane."

"Some people in Beijing organized a demonstrationthemselves in protest against the wrong attitude and practiceJapan had taken recently on the issue of its history ofaggression," the official Xinhua news agency quoted ForeignMinistry spokesman Qin Gang as saying.

"The Chinese government demanded the demonstrators to keepcalm and sane, give voice to their attitude in a lawful andorderly way, and not to engage in excessive action."

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that two Japanesestudents were beaten at a restaurant in Shanghai on Saturdaynight. The Japanese Consulate General in China's biggestcommercial city told Kyodo the two received treatment at alocal hospital and returned to their homes.

In Beijing on Sunday, hundreds of riot police were postedat the embassy and official residence, but there were no signof demonstrators.

Embassy spokesman Ide Keiji said ambassador Koreshige Anamihad urged China to take "necessary measures" to protect theembassy and consulates, as well as Japanese nationals andbusinesses in the country.

Ide said Chinese officials had expressed regret andpromised to try to prevent similar incidents.

Asked if the demonstrations would have a long-term impacton economic ties between the Asian giants, Ide said: "We needto see in Japan what kind of reaction there will be. I hope wecan overcome this incident for the sake of friendship and goodrelations." (Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck in Beijing,Sophie Taylor in Hong Kong and Bobby Yip in Shenzhen)
 
 

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