Toronto Sun

SHANGHAI - Protesters took to the streets in several Chinese cities to vent their anger against Japan on Saturday, and thousands marched in Tokyo in the second anti-China rally this month following a row over disputed islands.

Relations between Asia's top economies worsened sharply last month, when Japan detained a Chinese trawler captain whose boat collided with Japanese patrol ships near the disputed islands - called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

The islands are near potentially huge oil and gas reserves in the East China Sea.

An estimated crowd of 2,000 gathered in downtown Chengdu, capital of China's southwestern Sichuan Province, from early afternoon, unfurling banners and shouting "Defend the Diaoyu Islands," "Fight Japan" and other slogans.

Students from several universities marched under the watchful eye of large numbers of police spread out to cordon off shopping malls, some of which were reportedly damaged. A Reuters photographer estimated there were a few hundred police.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that in Xian, the capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, thousands of college students marched with flags and banners, shouting slogans such as "Diaoyu Islands are China's" and "Boycott Japanese goods."

In Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan province, college students thronged to a downtown square.

In Tokyo, more than 2,000 protesters gathered in Aoyama Park, which is built on what was once a military shooting range.

Holding Japanese flags and chanting "we will not allow China to invade the Senkaku islands, we will not allow China to invade Japan and other Asian countries," they marched through the busy Roppongi district to the Chinese Embassy.

"The Senkaku islands belong to me and every Japanese. I am angry as our belongings were stolen," said a 23-year-old student, Masato Yoshida.

One of the organisers of the rally was Toshio Tamogami, a former air force chief who was sacked after publishing an essay that argued that Japan was not an aggressor in World War Two.

Japan's occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945 is a lingering source of bitterness. Today, Tokyo is uneasy about Beijing's burgeoning economic and military clout.

Tamogami also organised an Oct. 3 rally in which around 2,700 people took part, criticising China and blasting Prime Minister Naoto Kan's handling of the territorial dispute.

Critics charged that Kan caved in to pressure from Beijing to release the captain of the fishing trawler.

Amid the diplomatic row between the two nations, four Japanese citizens employed by construction firm Fujita Corp were detained in China on suspicion of illegally entering a military zone, but they were subsequently released.

Japan and China are trying to arrange a formal summit meeting between the two countries' leaders at the end of October on the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam.

Kan and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao both called for better ties at an informal meeting this month, but they also stressed their claims to the uninhabited islands.