"We have shops damaged at Caringbah, cars damaged at Cronulla," New South Wales police spokesman Paul Bugden said. "We have six arrests at this stage."

One person was apparently hit with a rock outside the Cronulla police station, he added, saying that youths riding around in cars were involved in the violence.

The AAP news agency said gunshots had been heard near Cronulla's beach, but police did not confirm the report.

Bugden said he did not have descriptions of those involved in last night's violence, but said the rampage, which spilled over into the early hours of this morning, "obviously stems from the last 24-48 hours."

By around 12:30am, calm had returned to the suburbs targeted by the carloads of youths.

A resident of the suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands, Steven Dawson, said a bottle thrown through his apartment window showered his five-month-old son with glass, but did not hurt the child.

"That bottle could have killed him," Dawson said.

Horst Dreizner said a car was rammed through the front doors of his denture store, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.

He said he feared the violence would escalate.

"Personally, I think it is only the beginning," he said.

AAP, citing a resident who declined to be named, said men riding in up to 50 cars and wielding baseball bats converged on Cronulla, smashing cars. Ambulances were called to help at least one injured man seen on the side of the road.

Earlier yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard condemned Sunday's violence, but said he did not believe Australian society has an undercurrent of racism.

"I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country," he said.

Sunday's fighting left 31 people injured, including police and paramedics. One was hospitalized after being stabbed in the back by a man police said was Arab in appearance. There were 16 arrests.

"What we have seen yesterday is something I thought I would never see in Australia and perhaps we have not seen in Australia in any of our lifetimes, and that is a mass call to violence based on race," Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian told Sky News.

New South Wales police chief Ken Moroney called Sunday's rioting among "the worst violence that I have ever seen in my policing service of 40 years."

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma said police would hunt down the instigators of the violence, which authorities said was fanned by neo-Nazis.

Shootings show China's real face

Last Tuesday, Chinese police shot dead at least three villagers during protests in Dongzhou Village, Guangdong Province, over forced appropriation of land for the construction of a wind farm. The protest deteriorated into a battle between the police and the villagers when relatives were not granted access to the bodies of those who had been killed.

Officials blocked the release of the story for three days, but it became public last Friday when it was revealed that the death toll may have been 30 or more -- which would make it one of the bloodiest crackdowns on protesters since the 1989 student-led protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

According to Reuters, quoting Chinese Security Minister Zhou Yongkang, there were more than 74,000 protests or riots, each involving more than 100 people, in China last year. That amounts to about 230 large-scale protests every day -- a staggering figure that suggests the degree to which the authority and legitimacy of the government is being questioned by the people. The Dongzhou incident, which is currently the focus of foreign media attention, is just one of many that expose the cost of China's blind rush toward economic success. There have also been accusations of compensation being pocketed directly by government officials.

The official figures for the number of confrontations between the public and the police probably underestimate the scale of such incidents, and the Chinese government has been glossing over the extent of the unrest. The international community is not convinced by Beijing's claims about the benefits of "social democracy with Chinese characteristics," and is even getting a little sick of them. It is beginning to realize that Beijing's sense of superiority is based on the government's willingness to shoot and kill civilians in order to retain its grip on power. After unleashing the military on the Tiananmen protesters, the government took no political or moral responsibility for its actions. It cannot be criticized by the Chinese media, and cannot be voted out of office.

On Oct. 19, the Information Office of China's State Council issued a document of more than 30,000 characters titled Building Political Democracy in China. The document put special emphasis on the fact that "China's democracy is a people's democracy under the leadership of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]." This should be revised to state that China's democracy is one in which the people can be massacred by the CCP.

This document has been regarded by many in the international community as a white paper on China's political development. The document notes that democracy springs from the people and is not imposed from outside. The government's own words go to show that Beijing has no intention of introducing democracy in China.

The question must be asked: If China has not achieved democracy in the course of its 5,000-year history, are its people condemned to be denied it forever? Would not any benevolent government seek to learn from other nations and bring about a more civilized system of rule? Is not a system of counting heads preferable to one of breaking them?

The people of Taiwan are concerned about the development of democracy in China. They sincerely hope that China will attain democracy as soon as possible, and that it will not lightly resort to armed conflict to resolve the cross-strait impasse.

But from what we have seen of this massacre of villagers, the Chinese government has yet to learn the lesson of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. If it treats its own people with such violence, it would surely act with even greater harshness against the people of Taiwan. Surely those who advocate unification with China cannot be blind to this?