Angry demonstrators attempted to storm the Japanese embassy in Beijing yesterday, state media said, as tens of thousands of people across China protested against Japan over a growing territorial dispute.
Riot police armed with batons and shields struggled to contain the swelling crowd outside the embassy, where witnesses said at least 2,000 people had gathered, some of them throwing stones and plastic bottles at the building.
A mob attempted to break into the embassy compound, but were stopped by armed police, Xinhua news agency said. It estimated the crowd at several thousand at its peak.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, there were online reports that protests were staged in at least a dozen cities across China, with Japanese-built cars and Japanese restaurants being attacked by angry crowds.
Japanese media estimated 40,000 people took part in the protests nationwide.
On China’s Sina Weibo (新浪微博), a microblog similar to Twitter, images were posted of protests in Chongqing and Kunming.
Photo: AFP
Rallies were reported in several other places, including Nanjing, Xian and Taiyuan.
Much of the information about the protests posted online appeared to have been removed by the afternoon by China’s army of Internet censors — suggesting that Beijing is aiming to stop the row from spiraling further out of control.
The protests also did not feature on regular news bulletins on the state-run China Central Television.
The rumbling territorial dispute reached a new level this week, when Japan announced that it had bought islands in the East China Sea that it administers and calls the Senkaku Islands. The islands are also claimed by Taiwan, where they are called the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), and China, where they are called the Diaoyu Islands.
Six Chinese ships sailed into waters around the archipelago on Friday, with Beijing saying they were there for “law enforcement,” leading Tokyo to summon the Chinese ambassador to protest what it insisted was a territorial incursion.
In the Chinese capital, where there have been large anti-Japan demonstrations for the past few days, roads were cordoned off and a helicopter hovered overhead, monitoring the embassy protest.
Nearby Japanese restaurants, which were all closed, appeared not to have been targeted by the angry crowds, but some protesters had draped Chinese flags over them.
Police monitored other demonstrations across China.
In Shanghai, police threw a security ring around the Japanese consulate, but allowed groups of protesters to approach the compound for short periods.
Scores waved Chinese flags, chanted slogans such as “Little Japanese” and held up signs insisting the islands were Chinese.
Police confiscated their signs and banners at the conclusion of the protest.
China and Japan are Asia’s two biggest economies with close trade and business ties. However, the relationship is often tense due to the territorial dispute and Chinese resentment over historical issues.
A Japanese diplomat said on Friday that Tokyo had issued a safety warning to its citizens in China after six “serious” cases of assault and harassment, all in Shanghai.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS