Dozens of protests flare up across China as dispute over Senkaku Islands intensifies
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| Anti-Japanese protester throws a gas cannister as they demonstrate over the disputed Senkaku Islands, on Sept. 16, 2012 in Shenzhen, China. Protests have taken place across China in a dispute that is becoming increasingly worrying for regional stability. (Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images) |
On Tuesday in Beijing the car of U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke was attacked outside the U.S. Embassy by a mob of several dozen Chinese involved in anti-Japan protests.
Above is video posted to YouTube by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, showing protesters surrounding and throwing water bottles at U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke's car on September 18, 2012, in Beijing.
Tuesday, Sept. 18 was the anniversary of the Mudken Incident, when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, beginning a 14-year occupation. Chinese protesters burned the Japanese flag in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and dozens of anti-Japan protests flared in cities across China. In addition, tens of thousands of Chinese fishing boats headed toward the disputed Senkaku Islands.
Chinese official media denied that the government had a hand in the unrest, while some said the protesters and the fishermen were encouraged or compensated by the regime.
In China, Japanese retail stores closed on Sept. 18. Japanese automakers Toyota, Honda, and Mazda shut their plants on Sept. 18, according to Hong-King based, Beijing-friendly broadcaster Phoenix.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, “The protests are spontaneous actions by the general public.” [Tiananmen Square protests of 1989]
Some Chinese people expressed doubt. A Shanghai petitioner told Sound of Hope Radio, “There has never been a parade allowed in China since 1949. Last week, Wang Zhihua from Shanghai went to the Shanghai Public Security seeking permission to have a march. He was told, you can’t march anywhere else, only in front of the Japanese Embassy.”
Shandong University professor Sun Wenguang told Sound of Hope, an overseas Chinese radio station, “You can clearly see, [the Chinese regime] is trying to divert domestic political pressure.”
The trial of former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun ended on Sept. 18. Wang was former Chongqing leader Bo Xilai’s second in command. He fled to the U.S. Embassy, reportedly with documentation of extensive crimes by Bo, including state-sponsored organ harvesting. No verdict has been announced.
In Shenyang, where the Japanese invasion started in 1931, air raid sirens sounded for three minutes at 9:18 a.m. Japan’s occupation of China included a puppet government based in Manchuria, and many atrocities. Shenyang radio and TV stations cut into programs with “Don’t forget the national humiliation, rejuvenate China.”
The protests were large. More than 5,000 people assembled at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, where they threw water bottles and other objects. According to Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, nearly 10,000 protesters marched in Shanghai, Shenyang, and Chengdu. Police arrested some protesters in Shanghai.
At the same time as the invasion anniversary, the dispute over the South China Sea intensified. Chinese Communist Party Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Xu Caihou met with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Xu condemned Panetta’s statement that the Senkaku Islands are inside an area covered by the U.S.-Japan security treaty, Ifeng reported.
Tensions over the islands increased when Japanese media reported that two Japanese nationalists landed on the Senkaku Islands on Sept. 18.
Japanese Economic News reported that Japan plans to send warships from the Japanese self-defense forces when the Japanese Coast Guard can no longer handle the situation. On the same day Kyodo News reported that the coast guard said 14 Chinese government ships had entered the area. Fuji News Network, in Japan, reported that two Chinese frigates were found 80 nautical miles from the Senkaku Islands.
Deputy secretary-general of the National Security Policy Committee at China’s Policy Research Council, Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian, told Chinese media that Japan sending forces to the Senkaku Islands would start a military confrontation.
According to a Beijing Times report, after a three-and-a-half-month East China Sea fishing moratorium, on Sept. 16, tens of thousands of fishing boats from Zhejiang and Fujian provinces embarked for the disputed waters.
Chinese state media Qianjiang Evening News said, “Thousands of Chinese fishing boats went to Diaoyu Island, Japan, facing a formidable enemy.” Hexun.com, a Chinese financial website, reported that the islands dispute and the fishing boats “caused the Japanese stock market to suddenly drop 0.35 percent.”
Posts percolated on Weibo, the social messaging platform that the regime had told fishermen that they’d be compensated if they went fishing near the Senkaku Islands.
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Read the original Chinese article
China-Japan Dispute Tests China’s Ties With the U.S.
China's territorial dispute with Japan over a group of islands in the East China Sea is also testing the country's relations with the U.S.
While both the American and the Chinese governments are taking steps to avoid escalating tensions between Asia's two biggest economies, there were signs this week that Washington’s alliance with Japan and its intentions in the region remain a source of friction.
During a visit to China this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged China and Japan to exercise restraint and repeated Washington's insistence that it does not take sides in the dispute. But an article in China's state-run Global Times said it is "obvious" that Washington is partial to Japan.
Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University says that China is suspicious of Japan’s military alliance with the United States, guaranteed by the Japan-U.S. security treaty of 1951. The pact assures that Japan gets U.S. assistance should China take military action against its neighbor.
“The Chinese government views the U.S. as encouraging illegal actions by Japan. The government is dissatisfied with this, and the Chinese population is even more dissatisfied,” Shi says.
Anti-Japanese rallies started in China after Japan announced it would nationalize three disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Some slogans during the most recent marches criticized the United States, blamed by people for having included the disputed islets into its security treaty with Japan.
On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador’s car was surrounded in Beijing by a small group of protesters who had wandered away from the nearby Japanese embassy, focal point of the recent demonstrations. Protesters pelted the car with small objects before Chinese police intervened and the car was able to make its way inside the diplomatic compound.
“I believe that this event will push the Chinese government to be more serious and more insistent to ensure that anti-Japanese protests are conducted in accordance with the law,” Shi Yinhong says.
Renown artist and Chinese government critic Ai Weiwei, who posted a video showing ambassador Gary Locke’s car becoming target of the protesters, told the French News agency that he believes central authorities were encouraging mass rallies.
Although extreme anger against Japan was palpable at the marches and some slogans included calls for brutal retaliation measures against China’s long time rival, most of the protests were peaceful. Reports of violence against Japanese individuals and businesses in some Chinese cities including Shenzhen and Guangzhou prompted the Chinese Foreign Ministry to say that criminal episodes would be investigated according to the law.
David Zweig, professor of social science at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology, says that Beijing certainly wished the demonstrations did not turn violent, but was in careful in how it phrased its warning.
“They did not publicly condemn the use of violence because that might make them look like they don’t support the marches or the protests,” Zweig says. “It’s a way of warning people, without antagonizing them,” he adds.
With no more protests reported since Tuesday and after a three-day visit by the American defense secretary, Zweig believes that China and the U.S. now have some breathing space to move forward in their overall relations.
“They decided to have joint exercises, which is a significant move forward,” he says.
Yet next month both countries face an uncertain political phase, with an election in the United States and China’s Party Congress expected to nominate the country’s next rulers.
Shi Yinhong says that this might complicate the two country’s traditional rivalries, which he thinks have gotten worse in the last few years and during the recent crisis with Japan.
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