Thousands in Beijing march against Japan
Protesters attack businesses, embassy
Compiled from wire reports
BEIJING -- Thousands of Chinese protesters held a rally here Saturday, chanting "Down with Japan" and pelting the Japanese embassy and businesses with rocks and bottles. No Japanese in the Chinese capital were reported injured. The protesters demanded a boycott of Japanese goods to oppose new textbooks that critics say gloss over Tokyo's wartime atrocities. Some marched to the Japanese Embassy in the central part of the capital and threw rocks and bottles, breaking some of its windows. Several thousand later went to the eastern part of the city and surrounded the official residence of Japanese Ambassador Koreshige Anami, where they threw stones at his windows and overturned a nearby car believed to be Japanese. Hundreds lingered near the compound until evening, when they began to disperse. Others were seen attacking Japanese restaurants and a bank, throwing rocks, smashing windows and insulting the workers. The violence prompted Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi to file a protest with Chinese Minister to Japan Cheng Yonghua, urging Beijing to tighten security for Japanese diplomatic compounds and to protect Japanese citizens and businesses there. Cheng reportedly said he would immediately report the request to his government. Scores of unarmed police stood by as the crowd of mostly young men burned a Japanese flag and marched through the university district in the northwest. Although the police tried to maintain order, they did not try to stop the protesters. The protest was the biggest in the tightly controlled capital since 1999, when the U.S. Embassy was besieged after NATO warplanes bombed China's embassy in Belgrade during the war over Kosovo. It is also believed to be the largest anti-Japanese demonstration in Beijing since the two countries normalized diplomatic ties in 1972. Estimates of the crowd ranged from 10,000 to about 20,000. The Japanese Embassy in Beijing said there were no reports of Japanese nationals being hurt by the demonstrators. Waving Chinese flags and singing the national anthem, the demonstrators gathered at a shopping center in the capital's technological research and sales hub of Zhongguancun. The marchers carried signs saying "Protest new Japanese textbooks," referring to the recently approved junior high school texts, including one penned by nationalist scholars, that has been criticized as glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities against China. Spectators clapped and cheered as the marchers passed. "Boycott Japanese goods!" the protesters chanted. "Long live China!" Some of them tore down a half-dozen advertisements for Japanese-made Canon cameras along the road as they passed. Some of the messages on their placards even called for cutting off diplomatic ties with Japan. "I think China should be more firm," said protester James Liu, 25, an engineer who works for a French company. "This is a good way to pass our voice to the government and to the Japanese people." "It's true that Japanese investment helps China," Liu said. "But we don't like it when they change their history books. That's why we're here." Others called for rejecting Tokyo's campaign for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council -- a privilege held only by China, the United States, Russia, Britain and France. Referring to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, some protesters chanted, "Koizumi is a dog! Dogs are no good!" China's government hasn't said whether it will oppose giving a Security Council seat to Japan. But Beijing regards Tokyo as its rival and could be unwilling to give up its status as the only Asian nation with a permanent council seat, which carries veto power over U.N. actions. A group of Chinese nationalists claim to have gathered millions of signatures on an online petition calling for Tokyo to be denied a permanent Security Council seat. Public anger has been mounting in China and South Korea recently over a series of tit-for-tat disputes. The new history textbook has touched a particularly raw nerve because it is said to gloss over the Japanese military's massive sexual enslavement of Asian women as well as other offenses and incidents. Last week, a trade association for Chinese chain stores called for a boycott of beer, coffee and other products made by Japanese companies that it claims supported the revised version of the textbook, which is considered particularly nationalistic. The education ministry approved several history textbooks, including the revisionist one, on Tuesday for use in schools beginning in April 2006. The protests have turned violent in some areas. Last weekend in Chengdu, demonstrators vandalized a shopping mall operated by Ito-Yokado Co. and an outlet in Shenzhen run by Aeon Co., both major Japanese supermarket operators. On Friday, Japanese Ambassador Anami said the embassy has called on the Chinese government to ensure the safety of Japanese businesses and residents, as rumors swirled of a possible anti-Japan demonstration in the capital over the weekend. The Japanese Embassy earlier warned in a message on its Web site that a demonstration for a boycott of Japanese products may be planned in Zhongguancun. Most protests in the Chinese capital are banned, but the government occasionally allows brief protests by a few dozen people at a time outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on key war anniversaries. Past demonstrations outside the Japanese embassy have typically been heavily policed, choreographed events involving about 50 people, with short speeches, some singing, and petitions or letters being presented to the mission. In a rare move, the English-language service of China's official news agency, Xinhua, ran a story on the Saturday rally, noting that more than 1,000 people took part to protest "the tampering of history in Japan." China's state media seldom reports on protest rallies inside China. Word of the protest Saturday spread in advance through e-mail and mobile phone messages sent by Chinese nationalist groups. At the Japanese restaurant Gassan, protesters hurled rocks into the windows and insulted its workers. Hundreds watched as dozens of protesters smashed all of its windows and shouted "Japanese whores" at the workers inside. Police were seen telling the rock throwers that the workers were probably Chinese. After five minutes of rock and bottle throwing, a young Chinese man stood up and told the crowd to end the violence. However, the crowd moved down the street not far from the restaurant and began pelting the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi with stones on East Third Ring Road. At one point, some of the demonstrators gathered near a local outlet of Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya and shouted, "Don't sell Japanese goods." The group dispersed when police officers steered them away from the outlet. In the afternoon, about 1,000 protesters marched to the Japanese Embassy, which had been cordoned off with yellow tape, and attacked it with rocks and plastic bottles as dozens of police cars, vans and a busload of armed police stood by. Protesters later pushed their way through a paramilitary police cordon to the gates of the Japanese ambassador's residence, throwing stones and water bottles and shouting "Japanese pig come out!" Some 500 paramilitary police holding plastic shields raced into the compound and barricaded the gates. "Chinese people shouldn't protect Japanese," the protesters shouted at the police as they threw stones and bricks at the residence. By early evening, the protesters began returning home, and buses suddenly appeared to take student demonstrators back to their universities. The Japan Times: April 10, 2005
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China
Bandera imperial nipona
 Violentas protestas se registraron este fin de semana frente a la embajada japonesa en la capital así como en varios consulados nipones en ciudades como Guangzhou (Cantón) y un ataque a un supermercado japonés en la sureña ciudad de Shenzhen. Los manifestantes gritaban "¡Boicot a Japón!" y "¡Largo, cerdo japonés!", mientras lanzaban piedras, destrozaban ventanas, quemaban banderas niponas y les gritaban a los cerca de 500 policías enviados a mantener el orden "los chinos no deben proteger a los japoneses".

A comienzos de la semana pasada, el gobierno japonés había sido criticado por aprobar un controvertido libro de texto de historia que los manifestantes, así como muchas personas en China y Corea del Sur, afirman que suaviza las atrocidades cometidas por Japón durante la Guerra chino-japonesa, en el marco de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El embajador japonés en Pekín defendió los libros y añadió que eran producidos por compañías privadas y no por el gobierno nipón.

El ''Diario del Pueblo'' informó acerca de los eventos que llevaron a las protestas, citando las demandas de los manifestantes a "proteger las Islas Diaoyu"; a "destrozar el sueño japonés" de un asiento permanente en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas y a boicotear los productos japoneses. Entre seis y veinte mil personas habían iniciado una protesta antijaponesa pacífica el sábado temprano, antes de los disturbios. Los manifestantes también atacaron una sucursal del Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi y un restaurante japonés cuyas meseras estaban vestidad con kimonos, según la agencia ''Reuters''. Miles lanzaron piedras a la casa del embajador japonés, Koreshige Anami, según la agencia ''Kyodo News''.

"Nuestra generación cree que China debe defender sus derechos y dejar de ser suave con Japón", afirmó el estudiante universitario Li Jiangchuan a ''The New York Times'', quien añadió "Japón debería dejar de mentir acerca de la historia y decir la verdad". Por su parte, Li Hongbo, de 19 años, estudiante de la Universidad de Tsingua, dijo que "Cada ciudadano chino siente ira por la manera en que Japón ignora su propia historia y trata de ocupar el territorio soberano de China". China y Japón se disputan las diminutas Islas Diaoyu (Senkaku en japonés) al este del Mar de la China, las cuales poseen reservas de gas natural.

Japón protestó de manera formal lo sucedido ante la misión diplomática china en Tokio. Los diplomáticos chinos expresaron sus disculpas por el hecho de que las protestas se salieran de control. "El que la gente tomara medidas como tirar piedras a la residencia del embajador y a la embajada no es aceptable por el gobierno chino. En representación del mismo, ofrezco mi más profunda lástima y expreso mis disculpas", dijo el Viceministro de Exteriores chino Qiao Zonghuai. 

No obstante, en las últimas horas, el primer ministro Wen Jiabao declaró en Nueva Delhi que Japón debe "encarar la historia" y afirmó que "una respuesta pública contundente" podría hacer reflexionar al país nipón acerca de su invasión al Lejano Oriente durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Por su parte, el primer ministro japonés, Jun'ichirō Koizumi, dijo el lunes que la culpa es de China por no proteger a los japoneses durante las protestas. "China es responsable por la seguridad de los japoneses en su país", afirmó.