20100916 China protest calls grow in Japan row

China protest calls grow in Japan row

ISLE DISPUTE: Any demonstrations are likely to be stopped or tightly controlled, as the Chinese government is wary of any public demonstrations that could turn violent

Reuters, BEIJING
Thursday, Sep 16, 2010, Page 5

A protester tries to reach the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong yesterday to demand the release of the captain of a Chinese fishing boat.

PHOTO: AFP

Chinese activists yesterday urged protests against Japan in the latest row over disputed islands, which has stirred mutual distrust over sovereignty and control of potentially valuable oil and gas reserves.

The spat has festered for more than a week since Japan arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat seized after it collided with Japan Coast Guard ships near small islands in the East China Sea claimed by both sides.

China has repeatedly demanded that Japan free Zhan Qixiong (詹其雄), whose 14 crew members were released on Monday. Last week, Beijing bared its anger by canceling planned talks over disputed natural gas reserves in the East China Sea.

Calls for protest marches on Saturday appeared on a Chinese Web site — www.cfdd.org.cn — devoted to the dispute over the islands, which are called Diaoyutais (釣魚台) in China and Senkaku in Japan.

The calls for a public show of anger may well come to nothing, but they show the acrimony that could turn this row into a wider rift between Asia’s two largest economies.

“Protest against the Japanese government’s kidnapping of our compatriot, the fisherman, Mr Zhan Qixiong,” one statement on the Web site said, calling for a peaceful street march in Shanghai.

“Protest against Japan’s disregard for international law and justice through its aggressive conduct and piracy,” it said.

Another, briefer statement urged a protest in Nanjing, an eastern Chinese city brutally occupied by Japan in 1937.

Beijing police sources said they were preparing for possible anti-Japan demonstrations in the capital on Saturday, the 79th anniversary of an incident marking Japan’s deepening occupation of China, bitter memories of which still shape Chinese public views of Japan, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported.

The Chinese Communist Party is wary of any public demonstrations. Marches against Japan in 2005 in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities sometimes veered into violence.

So far, any Chinese protests have been brief and involved only a dozen or so people watched by police. Activists planning to take boats to the islands have been stopped.

“I don’t think this is like 2005, when there was one thing after another — petitions, diplomatic actions — that built up until it erupted,” said Tong Zeng, a Beijing-based businessman who was involved in past protests over Japan and the islands.

Tokyo’s embassy in Beijing said it had not heard any specific information about protests, but urged Japanese to be careful.

The latest meeting between senior diplomats from both countries brought no outward signs that either was giving ground.

In talks with the Japanese ambassador in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin (劉振民) again “demanded that Japan immediately release and return the boat captain,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Japanese Ambassador Uichiro Niwa told Liu that China should rein in actions that could worsen the row, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing a statement from the Japanese embassy.

Niwa chided Beijing for “taking unilateral action by deliberately linking the fishing ship collision case with several unrelated issues,” Kyodo reported.

Those include China’s postponement of the talks aimed at eventually reaching a treaty on joint development of the disputed undersea gas resources.

In 2008, Beijing and Tokyo agreed to try to solve the feud by jointly developing gas fields, but progress has been halting.