Protests against Japan broke out in more than a dozen Chinese cities, including Beijing, yesterday, as authorities allowed thousands of people to vent their anger over an escalating territorial row.
The demonstrations — which saw Japanese businesses, restaurants and cars targeted in some cities — erupted after Japanese nationalists landed on an island claimed by both countries.
The latest anti-Japan protests are believed to be the most widespread in China since 2005, when several cities saw demonstrations over a slew of grievances, including Japan’s wartime atrocities.
Photo: Reuters
In Shenzhen, protesters waved Chinese flags and shouted slogans as they marched on major streets, with the numbers swelling to about 1,000, Xinhua news agency said. Protesters overturned a police car that was made in Japan and damaged a Japanese restaurant, it said.
Zhang Pei, one of the participants, said protesters were marching toward the train station on the border with Hong Kong.
“The demonstration is strung out for 7 to 8km. Many police are escorting us along the street,” he said by telephone.
Protests are usually swiftly put down in China, but one analyst said the government had an interest in allowing them to go ahead, for a time.
“They’re using the popular card to put pressure on Japan,” said Willy Lam (林和立), a China expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The [Chinese Communist] Party leadership realizes nationalism is a double-edged sword. If they see a possibility of the protests escalating, they will give the signals to put an end to this.”
More than 100 people gathered near a complex housing the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou, chanting: “Japan get out of the Diaoyu Islands,” Xinhua reported.
China — which yesterday lodged a “strong protest” with Tokyo — calls the archipelago the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), but it is controlled by Japan, which calls it the Senkaku Islands.
Witnesses said demonstrations also took place in Shanghai and Chengdu, where protests shut down a Japanese department store and a branch of the Japanese clothing store Uniqlo.
Anti-Japan protests also occurred in Qingdao, on the east coast, as well as in Shenyang and Harbin.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
RSS