Workers at a Japanese-owned factory in southern China went on strike amid a wave of sometimes violent anti-Japan protests in cities across the country, a company spokeswoman and local government official said.
The strike by 16,000 workers at the Taiyo Uden factory in the town of Shijie began Sunday as massive anti-Japanese demonstrations were under way in the nearby city of Shenzhen and elsewhere in China. They continued through at least Thursday, the officials said.
A spokesman for Shijie's local government yesterday said the strike was one of several staged by workers in the area -- a leading industrial zone with thousands of foreign-owned factories.
"In fact, they were simply anti-Japanese patriotic activities, not so-called strikes," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name.
The spokesman said the action was timed to mark Sunday's 110th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which China ceded Taiwan and other territories to Japan.
A spokeswoman for the factory's owner, Tokyo-based telephone handset maker Uniden, confirmed the strike but said managers didn't know why it had been called.
"We suppose that it's indirectly affected by the anti-Japan campaign in China. But there have been no explicit anti-Japan activities at the plant," Mika Shiromizu said.
Anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities began three weeks ago after Tokyo approved new history textbooks that critics accuse of glossing over Japanese atrocities in China and other Asian nations during World War II. Many Chinese are also firmly opposed to Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. China is currently the only Asian nation among the five permanent members.
Protesters have called for a boycott of Japanese products, although the economic impact has yet to register. However, Japanese companies that have invested billions in their China operations have said they fear trade relations could suffer if the protests continue.
Shiromizu said some workers had distributed leaflets on Monday saying company practices were "inappropriate."
Managers have held talks with the employees but workers have not appointed any representatives or made any clear demands, Shiromizu said.
Shiromizu said the factory had partially resumed operations Thursday night after an agreement was reached with workers. Workers were being contacted to return to work and the plant hopes to be running normally by the end of the day Friday, she said.
Calls to the factory rang unanswered Friday and an official at the local branch of China's Communist Party-controlled union said she had no information about any strikes. The official gave only her surname, Liang.
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