Eyewitness News: Anti-Japan protests in China continue

Reuters | 18 September 2012
BEIJING - Hundreds of Japanese businesses and the country's embassy suspended services in China on Tuesday, as anti-Japan protests threatened to reignite and drag a territorial dispute between Asia's two biggest economies deeper into crisis.

Two people thought to be Japanese nationals landed on one of the islands at the centre of the dispute, police in Okinawa said, raising fears the move could lead to direct clashes.

China's worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades has led to protests and attacks on Japanese companies such as car makers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, forcing them to halt operations. Japanese restaurants have also been attacked and expatriates are staying indoors.

More Japanese companies announced closures and suspensions at plants in China on Monday and Tuesday.

The worst of the protests broke out at the weekend and eased on Monday, but tensions escalated again on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China, as Chinese protesters re-gathered.

Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing, shouting anti-Japan slogans and throwing water bottles at the building, which was ringed by riot police. In the central city of Changsha, major public squares and shopping centres were cordoned off and patrolled by riot police.

Tensions were also high out at sea, around the disputed group of uninhabited islets at the centre of the dispute. In the East China Sea, the islands are claimed by both Japan and China and contain potentially large gas reserves.

A flotilla of around 1,000 Chinese fishing boats are reported by Chinese and Japanese media to be converging on the area, called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China, raising the risk that an accident could worsen the situation.

Japan said a Chinese fishing patrol boat had broadcast a radio message declaring the waters to be Chinese territory and asking Japanese Coast Guard vessels to leave. It was not clear how many of the Chinese boats had reached the area.

In 2010, a bilateral crisis over the islands erupted after a fishing boat collided with a Japanese Coast Guard vessel.

The Japanese government has set up an information-gathering operation to monitor the movements of the Chinese fishing boats.

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