MCLC: anti-Japan protests

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: anti-Japan protests
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (9/16/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/world/asia/anti-japanese-protests-over-di
sputed-islands-continue-in-china.html

Anti-Japanese Protests Continue in China Over Pacific Islands
By IAN JOHNSON and THOM SHANKER

BEIJING ‹ Anti-Japanese demonstrators took to the streets again on Sunday
in cities across China, with the government offering mixed signals on
whether it would continue to tolerate the sometimes violent outbursts.

The protests were orderly in Beijing, with several hundred people circling
in front of the Japanese Embassy demanding Chinese control over a small
island group 
<http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/rising-tension-and-stakes-i
n-japan-china-island-dispute/> known as Senkaku in Japan and as Diaoyu in
China. Protests were also reported in other cities, including Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Qingdao.

On Saturday, protests occurred in more than 50 cities, with some violence
reported. A factory for the Panasonic Corporation was set on fire in
Qingdao, and a Toyota dealership was looted, according to photographs
posted on social media sites and local residents reached by telephone.

³Across China, calls have grown for boycotts of Japanese products. Many
Japanese retailers and restaurants have been forced to place signs in
their windows supporting China, and on Sunday, Japan¹s prime minister
asked China to protect Japanese and their property.

A signed editorial on the Web site
<http://opinion.people.com.cn/n/2012/0915/c1003-19018681.ht> of People¹s
Daily, the authoritative Communist Party newspaper, said the protests
should be viewed sympathetically. While it did not defend the violence,
the editorial said the protests were a symbol of the Chinese people¹s
patriotism.

³No one would doubt the pulses of patriotic fervor when the motherland is
bullied,² the editorial said. ³No one would fail to understand the
compatriots¹ hatred and fights when the country is provoked; because a
people that has no guts and courage is doomed to be bullied, and a country
that always hides low and bides its time will always come under attack.²

Some articles in the Chinese news media, however, said the protests should
be ³rational² and peaceful.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is scheduled to visit Beijing on Monday,
and some observers said the government might try to limit the protests.

Just before landing in Tokyo on Sunday, Mr. Panetta told correspondents
aboard his jet that he was worried that territorial disputes in the
Pacific 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/world/asia/china-philippines-dispute-ove
r-island-gets-more-heated.html> could move from tension to conflict.

³I am concerned that when these countries engage in provocations of one
kind or another over these various islands, that it raises the possibility
that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence,² Mr.
Panetta said.

Mr. Panetta said the United States was not taking sides in any of the
region¹s territorial disagreements
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/world/asia/china-criticizes-vietnam-in-d
ispute-over-islands.html>, but advocated diplomacy to peacefully resolve
them. One option, he said, would be for the feuding nations to follow a
code of conduct advocated by theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations
<http://www.aseansec.org/>.

Both China and Japan claim the disputed islands, although Japan has
controlled them for over a century. Beijing increased its pressure on
Tokyo after the Japanese government purchased the islands from private
owners. Japan says the move was to prevent nationalists from using the
islands, but China has seen it as a step to solidify Japanese control. In
response, China dispatched surveillance ships to the waters near the
islands.

China¹s state-run news media has made repeated calls for the islands to be
given to China, which claims that it controlled them before Japan¹s
colonial expansion in the late 19th century. Both China and Japan are also
involved in territorial disputes with other countries over separate island
chains, some of which are thought to be surrounded by rich deposits of
natural resources in the surrounding waters.

There was evidence on Sunday that some Chinese government officials were
involved in the protests. In the western city of Xi¹an, activists on the
Internet identified one of the officials as the police chief
<http://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/cnnews/20120916/57835.html>. Although
local riots and protests are common in China, organized protests that are
tolerated by the authorities are rare.

The political analyst Li Weidong said the official tolerance fit a
longstanding pattern of behavior in which the Chinese government uses mass
protests to further its foreign policy goals. In a text message sent to
friends and associates, Mr. Li compared the current protesters to the
Boxers, a quasi-religious group that was used by the Qing dynasty
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/76364/Boxer-Rebellion> to
oppose foreign incursions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

³Beijing dares not to fight, but it¹s unable to talk it over either,² Mr.
Li wrote. ³So it has to employ Boxers, using product boycott to press
Japan.²

Ian Johnson reported from Beijing, and Thom Shanker from Tokyo.