More anti-Japan protests in China

Associated Press

Beijing, April 10:

Anti-Japan protests erupted for a second day in China today, as Tokyo demanded an apology and better protection for its citizens and interests a day after demonstrators smashed windows at Japan’s embassy in Beijing.

Demonstrations against Japan have spread in China since Tokyo approved a new history textbook

that critics say glosses over atrocities by Japan’s military in the first half of the 20th century, including forcing tens of thousands of women into sex slavery. Beijing slammed the decision, calling the book “poison” for youthful minds.

About 3,000 people marched toward the Japanese Consulate General in the southern city of Guangzhou today for a peaceful “spontaneous demonstration” and police were maintaining order, said a spokesman with the Guangzhou municipal government.

Ide Keiji, a spokesman for the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, said police prevented demonstrators from getting near the consulate.

A Hong Kong Cable Television correspondent reporting from the scene said the protesters threw eggs at Japanese restaurants as they passed by.

In the southern city of Shenzhen, up to 600 protesters marched to a Japanese department store. They shouted “Boycott Japanese Goods” and some threw plastic bottles of mineral water at a store selling Japanese camera equipment.

China today said it had ordered anti-Japanese protesters in Beijing to stay “calm and sane” and mobilised extra police to maintain public order but Japanese officials complained that not enough was done. When the protesters arrived at the embassy, security forces allowed people to throw stones, said Keiji.

The protesters also oppose Tokyo’s campaign for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura summoned China’s ambassador to lodge a protest and demand an apology and compensation following the violent anti-Japan rally in Beijing .