Three Japanese students and a teacher at a university in western China have apologized for wearing brassieres and fake genitals during a performance which sparked protests by thousands of Chinese students, the official Xinhua News Agency said yesterday.
The students and teacher at Northwest University in the city of Xian "expressed deep introspection and sincerely apologized" in a letter, Xinhua said.
They admitted that the "obscene performance ... brought serious displeasure to the students, faculty and audience of the Northwest University as well as other Chinese friends," it said.
It did not give any other details about the apology or whether the students and teacher were still at the school.
The incident occurred Wednesday night at a party for the school's foreign language students. Xinhua reported then that the students and their teacher, who is also Japanese, reportedly wore brassieres and hung fake genitals at their waists, did "obscene dances" and threw scraps of paper at the audience.
The act was immediately stopped, Xinhua said.
On Thursday, several thousand Chinese students congregated in front of the foreign students dormitory, demanding that the Japanese students apologize. They also presented petitions to the city government for a public apology, Xinhua said.
A woman who answered the telephone at the school president's office yesterday refused to comment on the written apology. She said things were "in normal order" and there were no protests on campus.
The outcry was the latest in a series of recent events that have aggravated already-sensitive relations between the two countries. China regularly protests gestures by Japan that it thinks slights its country or evokes memories of World War II.
In September, more than 400 Japanese men visiting a southern Chinese city reportedly hired prostitutes for two days of sex that coincided with the date in 1931 that China regards as the start of Japan's wartime occupation of its territory.
There has been no official confirmation of the incident, but China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Japan's government should make sure its citizens obey the law when they travel abroad.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not