The "Anti-Japan Vanguard" Web site used to be plastered with fiery screeds demanding that Tokyo atone for its World War II aggression.
Now, a year later, it advertises industrial machinery sold by its owner. Only its inflammatory Web site address -- japanpig.com -- reminds visitors of its former character.
The site's fate demonstrates the effectiveness of Beijing's steps to curtail anti-Japanese activities among the public, a year after angry, sometimes violent protests against Japan in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities.
Fearful that demonstrations could boomerang against the regime and scare off foreign investors, China has toned down state media's reporting about Japan and muzzled Web sites such as Anti-Japan Vanguard. The result: No new protests.
"The biggest reason that there haven't been more protests is that the government has taken effective measures to prevent them," said Jin Linbo of the China Institute of International Studies. "More cautious reporting by the media has been a big factor."
Anti-Japan protests last year culminated in a mob of about 20,000 people attacking the Japanese consulate in Shanghai on April 16, the anniversary of which is today.
The building and several Japanese businesses were severely damaged, but no one was seriously injured. China said it detained 42 people over the violence, but their fate remains unknown.
Japanese diplomats said Beijing has yet to make good on its promise to pay for damage to the consulate.
The protests stemmed from widespread anti-Japanese feelings nurtured over the past century. At the center is Tokyo's brutal invasion and occupation of much of China during the first half of the 20th Century -- horrors that the Communist Party keeps alive in school textbooks and through the state media.
More recently, resentments have been stirred by a Beijing-Tokyo dispute over rights to gas fields in the East China Sea, and by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan's war dead -- including indicted war criminals -- are worshipped.
Chinese anger was galvanized last year after Japan stepped up a campaign for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Activists organized an online petition campaign against the Japanese seat, attracting millions of signatures and inspiring a series of small demonstrations, leading up to the one in Shanghai.
While anti-Japanese groups are taking a lower profile, some say whether that approach lasts depends on Japan.
"As long as the Japanese government fails to take a proper attitude toward China and other Asian countries, I think there will be more protests of some kind at some time," said Feng Jinhua, a hero among the anti-Japanese campaigners for defacing a statue outside the Yasukuni Shrine in 2001, for which he was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Even so, recent expressions of anti-Japanese sentiment have mainly been limited to government statements.
"The government knows that protests can provoke even more problems," Jin said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing