Protesters waved Chinese flags and shouted slogans outside Carrefour stores in Beijing and other cities yesterday, venting anger over the disruption of the Olympic torch relay. No violence was reported and police dispersed the gatherings.
The French retailer has borne much of the nationalistic backlash after a pro-Tibet protester in Paris tried to grab the Olympic torch from a Chinese athlete in a wheelchair. Chinese Web sites have accused Carrefour of supporting the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, but the company denied that.
In Beijing, a handful of protesters at a Carrefour in the Haidian university district were outnumbered by dozens of police who guarded the store, which was packed with shoppers. Police detained seven men and two women. One of the men carried a sign saying “Protest Carrefour, Protest CNN” as about 200 spectators cheered. US-based CNN has been a focus of complaints that foreign news coverage of China’s crackdown on Tibet is biased.
“We want to let all foreigners know that China is very angry today. We have to let Chinese people in China know that we are united,” a protester said as he was led to a police van.
Protesters also carried banners and chanted slogans at Carrefour stores in Changsha in central China, Fuzhou in the southeast, Chongqing in the southwest and Shenyang in the northeast, the government’s Xinhua news agency reported. It said hundreds of people demonstrated in Changsha and 400 were on hand in Fuzhou, but it gave no other details.
The protests occurred despite Beijing’s efforts to discourage them and to calm anti-French sentiment.
Calls for boycotts of foreign companies have been deleted from Web sites.
A top figure in the ruling Communist Party, Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), on Wednesday called for Chinese to channel their “patriotic passion” into holding a successful Beijing Olympics in August.
Carrefour outlets in a dozen cities were the target of earlier protests, with scuffles erupting between Chinese and foreigners.
Paris-based Carrefour is China’s biggest retailer, with 112 outlets in areas throughout the country.
Phone calls to Carrefour officials yesterday were not answered.
At a Carrefour on Beijing’s east side yesterday, there was no sign of protests and the store was packed with shoppers.
One woman said she came to see whether there would be protests and stayed to shop.
“I heard about it, but didn’t think it would happen,” said the woman, who would give only her surname, Liu. “And since I was here, I figured I would pick up some things.”
Meanwhile, US actress and activist Mia Farrow yesterday touched down in Hong Kong, promising not to disturb the Olympic torch relay as she campaigns over Darfur and China’s links to the Sudan government.
Amid fears over freedom of speech ahead of today’s leg of the relay — which has been dogged by protests on its worldwide journey — Farrow said she had been questioned briefly by officials on her arrival.
“They were very polite and very nice,” she told reporters at Hong Kong airport. “They wanted some assurance that we are not here to disrupt the torch relay, which of course we are not.”
Today’s relay is expected to offer a last chance for pro-Tibet protesters and critics of China’s rights record to target the torch before it passes from the relatively open former British colony to the more restrictive mainland.
Farrow has been pushing China to help stop violence in Sudan’s conflict-riven Darfur region, and is expected to deliver an address in Hong Kong today entitled “Darfur and the Olympics.”
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS