Posted on 04/10/2005 1:05:30 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Tokyo lodged a formal protest with Beijing over a violent anti-Japan protest in the Chinese capital, demanding an apology and compensation.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura summoned China's ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, a day after the rally which drew up to 10,000 people and ended with angry demonstrators throwing rocks, bottles and eggs at the Japanese embassy.
"We formally demanded China's apology and compensation," Machimura told reporters.
However, when asked whether Wang apologized, Machimura said: "No."
Machimura will likely visit China next Sunday to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing, a foreign ministry official said.
Meanwhile Wang told reporters that Beijing did not condone the violent behaviour.
"The (Chinese) government does not agree with extreme action," Wang said.
China appealed for calm after the demonstration, saying a huge police force had been mobilized to keep order after Beijing's biggest protest in six years.
But about 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Japanese consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Sunday, according to a consulate official.
TV footage of the Beijing embassy showed broken windows and the main entrance littered with empty bottles and rocks. Foreign journalists were refused entry to the embassy to survey the damage on Sunday, a diplomat said in Beijing.
Japanese embassy spokesman Keiji Ide told AFP that 20 of the embassy building's windows were broken and five windows were smashed at the ambassador's residence in a different part of town.
The march was held to protest Japan's treatment of its wartime past in a history textbook and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The textbook row prompted China on Tuesday to summon the Japanese ambassador, who in a break from usual practice made his own demands, urging Beijing to put an end to alleged incitement of anti-Japanese sentiments.
China suffered a bloody occupation by Japan up to 1945, the most infamous incident being the 1937 massacre by Japanese troops of both soldiers and civilians in Nanjing.
Saturday's rowdy protest received front-page coverage in Japan's five major newspapers Sunday with the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun calling on China to exercise "self-restraint" following the rally.
Japan's conservative daily Sankei Shimbun strongly criticized Beijing, saying the Chinese government appeared to have approved of anti-Japanese action.
"What is troubling is that despite Beijing's promises to ensure security for the Japanese side, Chinese authorities did not prevent demonstrators from throwing rocks and bottles," the Sankei said.
The Asian neighbors have increasingly been at loggerheads. In November, Japan lodged a protest when a Chinese nuclear submarine intruded its waters near bitterly disputed gas reserves.
China has protested visits to Japan by Taiwan's former pro-independence president Lee Teng-hui in December and Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama who arrived Friday.
Man, the Chineese are really trying hard to create a demon out of Japan, yet Japan has done nothing but give aid to China. I guess to take peoples minds off issues at home.
It's not hard to demonize Japan when they steadfastly refuse to aknowledge the Rape of Nanking. Nor have they ever apologised to the Chinese people for anything they did in WWII as far as I know.
Make no mistake about this .. there is great hatred for Japan, in China. The reason, are the attrocities that were committed by the Japanese in Nanking.
China has never forgotten about that .. nor have they forgiven. The fact that Japan refuse to even acknowledge what they did, only adds insult to injury.
Mark my words. One day China is going to take vengence on Japan for what they did. If I was in Japan right now, I would be filling my pants.
China/Japan group hug ping.
I've been saying this same thing forever and still dummies continue to insist that the hatred is made up by the chi-coms.
It isn't just the Chineese, talk to Koreans and they too remember and hate the Japaneese.
I too hold animosity for what the bastards did to American
p.o.w.s using them for inhuman poison experiments and using them as slave labor.
Won' ever forget.
" yet Japan has done nothing but give aid to China"
I hope you don't think there's any altruism at work there.
They've mostly been taking care of China's cheap labor and lax environmental regulations to keep their otherwise uncompetitive companies alive.
And if you think it would be possible for a Japanese working at a Chinese subsidiary to get through a single day without in some way insulting at least one Chinese employee...
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