Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday denounced Japan’s decision to buy disputed islands as a farce and said Tokyo should “rein in its behavior,” as China moved to snuff out anti-Japan protests after days of demonstrations.
Relations between Asia’s two biggest economies have faltered badly, hitting their lowest point in decades on Tuesday when China marked the highly charged anniversary of Japan’s 1931 occupation of its giant neighbor.
Tension had run high on land and at sea, with four days of major protests in cities across China and Japanese, and Chinese boats stalking each other in waters around a group of East China Sea islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands and in China as the Diaoyu Archipelago (釣魚群島).
“Japan should rein in its behavior and stop any words and acts that undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Xi said in a meeting with visiting US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, according to Xinhua news agency.
Xi is tipped to replace Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) as party chief later this year.
Tokyo’s nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, floated a plan for metropolitan authorities to buy three of the islets, prompting Japan’s government to buy them instead in a bid to defuse the crisis.
“If Japan yields to China on this problem ... China’s hegemony in Asian waters would easily be established,” Ishihara told the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.
Japanese businesses shut hundreds of stores and factories across China, some sending workers back to Japan in fear the protests would get out of hand. Japan’s Beijing embassy had been under siege by protesters throwing water bottles, waving flags and chanting slogans evoking Japan’s occupation.
“It seems the protests in front of our embassy have subsided,” the embassy said in an e-mail to Japanese citizens.
Outside the embassy, police moved on a lone protester who had been shouting “Defeat small Japan” early yesterday.
To prevent a repeat of the protests, large numbers of riot police were deployed around the embassy and Beijing’s subway operator closed the station nearest to the Japanese mission.
On Tuesday, about 50 Chinese protesters surrounded and damaged a car carrying US Ambassador to China Gary Locke, embassy spokesman Nolan Barkhouse said. The incident happened outside the US embassy, which is close to the Japanese embassy.
“Embassy officials have registered their concern about yesterday’s incident with the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs and urged the Chinese government to do everything possible to protect American facilities and personnel,” Barkhouse said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS