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TOKYO: Nationalist groups rallied in Japan on Saturday against China's "invasion" into Japanese islands, scuffling with men who tried to block the march through central Tokyo streets.
Japanese national flags fluttered in a park in the capital as more than 1,000 people gathered for the second major rally since a bitter territorial row flared up over a maritime incident last month near the disputed islands.
Banners carried such messages as "Japan is in danger!" and "Don't forgive invader China".
As demonstrators left the park and started a march, two young men, believed to be Chinese, sat in the street to stop the rally.
One of their banners warned against exclusionism and read: "Stop fuelling harassment towards Chinese residents in Japan".
The two scuffled with Japanese nationalists and were dragged away by police officers. They were immediately released, according to police.
At the start of the rally, Asako Ogura, a lawyer who belongs to the conservative Sunrise Party, drew large cheers as she took up a microphone to claim China had been ungrateful to Japan.
"We Japanese have long extended official development assistance by using taxpayers' money, and the Chinese economy has grown to surpass the Japanese.
"But China used its economic power to build up its military and now demands we hand over Senkaku and Okinawa on the back of the military power," she said.
"Our fathers and mothers boldly fought Western powers 60 years ago. Now let's fight the Chinese communists and their puppet government led by the Democratic Party of Japan!"
Organisers estimated the crowd at more than 2,000 people, and said Internet broadcasts of the event drew 10,000 viewers.
The march continued to another central Tokyo park near the Chinese embassy.
At the centre of the dispute is a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The isles lie between Japan's Okinawa island and Taiwan.
The most bitter row in years between Asia's two biggest economies was sparked by Japan's arrest on September 8 of a Chinese trawler captain whose vessel had collided with two Japanese coastguard ships near the islands.
There has been a thaw in recent days, with China releasing the last of four Japanese men held for allegedly filming a military site.
-AFP/ac
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