SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Protesters took to the streets in several Chinese cities to vent their anger against Japan yesterday, 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.
