China Wants to Mend Ties With Japanese After Protest
October 17, 2010, 4:05 AM EDTBy Bloomberg News
(Adds damage to Japanese stores in ninth paragraph.)
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- China said it wants to maintain ties with Japan after demonstrators in the nations staged protests over a ship collision in contested waters last month that brought relations to their lowest in five years.
“China and Japan are important neighbors,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in Beijing late yesterday. “There are some sensitive and complicated issues between the two nations, and we suggest they be resolved by dialogue to maintain the strategic relationship of mutual benefit.”
As many as 3,000 Japanese marched through Tokyo yesterday, protesting against China and highlighting the tensions between Asia’s largest economies. Thousands of Chinese in cities from Xi’an to Hangzhou took to the streets to support their country’s claims to disputed islands near where the ship incident occurred, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Japan is attempting to arrange a summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at this month’s meeting of Asian leaders in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. The two men met in Brussels at an Asia-Europe summit on Oct. 4 and pledged to mend ties frayed by spats over the uninhabited islands in an area of the East China Sea that contains undersea oil and gas reserves.
Protesters in Tokyo said their demonstration reflects rising anti-China sentiment as well as disappointment with their own government’s foreign policy. Japan arrested the Chinese captain of a fishing boat after it collided with coast guard vessels on Sept. 7, near the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, releasing him 17 days later.
Tokyo Rally
Demonstrators in Tokyo chanted “we will not allow China to invade” the islands, which Japan administers and China claims as its own.
Japan freed the captain after China detained four Japanese employees of the construction company Fujita Corp. on Sept. 20 for allegedly videotaping military targets. The last of the Fujita employees was let go on Oct. 9.
China also curbed exports of rare earth metals necessary for Japan’s automobile and high-tech industries over the incident, Japanese Economy Minister Banri Kaieda said on Sept. 28.
‘Made Me Furious’
“China’s response to the collision by taking Japanese hostages made me furious,” said Yuko Yamanoi, 31, an employee of an environmental research firm in Tokyo, who attended yesterday’s rally. “I’m boycotting Chinese goods even though it’s difficult to find clothes and other items made in countries other than China.”
Japan’s former air force chief Toshio Tamogami led a procession to the Chinese embassy in the Roppongi financial and entertainment district.
In Chengdu in Sichuan Province, protesters chanted slogans such as “fight Japan,” Xinhua said. As many as 600 people gathered in front of an Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. store, forcing it to close about five hours early, Yasuhiro Suzuki, a company spokesman in Tokyo, said by telephone today.
Windows were smashed at the Ito-Yokado supermarket in Chengdu, said Minoru Matsumoto, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based parent company, Seven & I Holdings Co.
China expressed “deep concern” to Japan over the protest staged by “right-wing organizations,” spokesman Ma said in a separate statement on the ministry’s website.
--Sachiko Sakamaki and Xiao Yu. With assistance from Shunichi Ozasa and Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo. William Bi in Beijing. Editors: Paul Tighe, Patrick Harrington.
To contact the reporters on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo at Ssakamaki1@bloomberg.net; Xiao Yu in Beijing at yxiao@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net