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Anti-Japanese Protesters March in China Associated Press | April 10, 2005 BEIJING (AP) - Anti-Japan protests over a controversial new Japanese textbook erupted in southern China on Sunday, a day after a violent rally in Beijing. Tokyo demanded an apology and better protection for its citizens as a simmering diplomatic row threatened ties between the Asian heavyweights. Demonstrations against Japan have spread since Tokyo last week approved new textbooks that critics say fail to address the Japanese military's brutal wartime invasion and occupation of Asian nations in the first half of the 20th century, including forcing Asian women into sexual slavery for troops. On Saturday, about 1,000 demonstrators threw rocks and broke windows at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing after a noisy rally by more than 6,000 people in the university district in the capital's northwest, where some burned a Japanese flag. The protest was the biggest in the tightly controlled Chinese capital since 1999, when the U.S. Embassy was besieged after NATO warplanes bombed Beijing's Embassy in Belgrade during the war over Kosovo. Most protests in the Chinese capital are banned, but the government occasionally allows brief rallies by a few dozen people outside the Japanese Embassy on key war anniversaries. Anti-Japanese sentiment runs deep among Chinese, with many resenting what they see as Tokyo's failure to atone for its wartime aggression. China said Sunday it had ordered anti-Japanese protesters in Beijing to stay "calm and sane" and mobilized extra police to maintain public order, but Japanese officials complained that not enough was done. When the protesters arrived at the Japanese Embassy, security forces let them throw stones, embassy spokesman Ide Keiji said. "They let them do that. They didn't stop, they didn't arrest," he said. Japan's ambassador to China, Anami Koreshige, called the violent rally in Beijing "gravely regrettable" and called on Chinese authorities to protect Japanese citizens and businesses, as well as the embassy and other consulates in China, Keiji sad. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura also summoned China's ambassador on Sunday to lodge a protest and demand an apology and compensation for damages. Keiji said Japan had used diplomatic channels to "repeatedly request" protection of Japanese interests last week following demonstrations in the southern cities of Shenzhen and Chengdu, and received assurances from Beijing. Meanwhile, China said Japan should do more to improve relations between the two nations. "The Japanese have to do more things conducive to enhancing mutual trust and maintaining the relations between the two countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. He added that Japan should adopt an "earnest attitude and appropriate ways to deal with ... the feelings of the Chinese people." Protests continued Sunday, with some 10,000 demonstrators surrounding a Japanese-run Jasco supermarket in the southern city of Shenzhen, Keiji said. They shouted "Boycott Japanese goods!" and threw plastic bottles of mineral water at the store. About 3,000 people also marched toward the Japanese Consulate General in the southern city of Guangzhou for a peaceful "spontaneous demonstration" and police were maintaining order, said a spokesman with the Guangzhou municipal government who refused to give his name when reached by telephone. Hong Kong Cable Television showed a huge crowd of people protesting outside a shopping center in Guangzhou. They were trying to knock down police barriers set up around the center, and police were shoving the crowd as they struggled to contain it. A correspondent said protesters threw eggs at Japanese restaurants as they passed by. The history books, written by nationalist scholars, were approved by Japan's Education Ministry for use beginning April 2006. The row over the books and demonstrations in China threatens to worsen already chilly relations between the two countries. Despite growing trade and investment flows between the two sides, bilateral ties are at a low following recent clashes over disputed islands in the East China Sea, the incursion of a Chinese naval submarine into Japanese waters and exploration of natural gas fields beneath the seabed. --- Associated Press reporter Kenji Hall in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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