Beijing Mixes Messages Over Anti-Japan Protests

http://cn.nytimes.com/article/china/2012/09/17/c17protests/en/

Beijing Mixes Messages Over Anti-Japan Protests
By IAN JOHNSON and THOM SHANKER September 17, 2012

Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
Protesters splattered the Japanese Embassy in Beijing with eggs and paint over the weekend.


BEIJING — Anti-Japanese demonstrators took to the streets again on Sunday in cities across China, with the government offering mixed signals on whether it would continue to tolerate the sometimes violent outbursts.

The protests were orderly in Beijing, with several hundred people circling in front of the Japanese Embassy demanding Chinese control over a small island group known as Senkaku in Japan and as Diaoyu in China. Protests were also reported in other cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Qingdao.

CHINATOPIX, via Associated Press
Protesters burned a replica of the Japanese flag at a protest in Wuhan, in central China, on Sunday.

On Saturday, protests occurred in more than 50 cities, with some violence reported. A factory for the Panasonic Corporation was set on fire in Qingdao, and a Toyota dealership was looted, according to photographs posted on social media sites and local residents reached by telephone.

Across China, calls have grown for boycotts of Japanese products. Many Japanese retailers and restaurants have been forced to place signs in their windows supporting China, and on Sunday, Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, asked China to protect Japanese and their property.



A signed editorial on the Web site of People’s Daily, the authoritative Communist Party newspaper, said the protests should be viewed sympathetically. While it did not defend the violence, the editorial said the protests were a symbol of the Chinese people’s patriotism.

“No one would doubt the pulses of patriotic fervor when the motherland is bullied,” the editorial said. “No one would fail to understand the compatriots’ hatred and fights when the country is provoked; because a people that has no guts and courage is doomed to be bullied, and a country that always hides low and bides its time will always come under attack.”

Some articles in the Chinese news media, however, said the protests should be “rational” and peaceful.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is scheduled to visit Beijing on Monday, and some observers said the government might try to limit the protests.

Just before landing in Tokyo on Sunday, Mr. Panetta told correspondents aboard his jet that he was worried that territorial disputes in the Pacific raise “the possibility that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence.”

Mr. Panetta said the United States was not taking sides in any of the region’s territorial disagreements, but advocated diplomacy to peacefully resolve them. One option, he said, would be for the feuding nations to follow a code of conduct advocated by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Both China and Japan claim the disputed islands, although Japan has controlled them for over a century. China increased its pressure on Japan after the Japanese government purchased the islands from private owners. Japan says the move was to prevent nationalists from using the islands, but China has seen it as a step to solidify Japanese control. In response, China dispatched surveillance ships to the waters near the islands.

Complicating the diplomatic dispute, Japan’s newly appointed ambassador to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, died Sunday after falling ill last week in Tokyo, according to Japanese and Chinese news reports. He was appointed ambassador last week and was to assume his duties next month.

China’s state-run news media has made repeated calls for the islands to be given to China, which claims that it controlled them before Japan’s colonial expansion in the late 19th century. Both China and Japan are also involved in territorial disputes with other countries over separate island chains, some of which are thought to be surrounded by rich deposits of natural resources in the surrounding waters.

There was evidence on Sunday that some Chinese government officials were involved in the protests. In the western city of Xi’an, activists on the Internet identified one of the officials as the police chief.

The political analyst Li Weidong said the official tolerance fit a longstanding pattern of behavior in which the Chinese government uses mass protests to further its foreign policy goals. In a text message sent to friends and associates, Mr. Li compared the current protesters to the Boxers, a quasi-religious group that was used by the Qing dynasty to oppose foreign incursions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“Beijing dares not to fight, but it’s unable to talk it over either,” Mr. Li wrote. “So it has to employ Boxers, using product boycott to press Japan.”


Ian Johnson reported from Beijing, and Thom Shanker from Tokyo.

http://cn.nytimes.com/article/china/2012/09/17/c17protests/

中国多地爆发反日示威
IAN JOHNSON, THOM SHANKER 联合报道 2012年09月17日

Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
本周末，日本驻北京大使馆被人们扔了鸡蛋。

打印 转发 寄信给编辑 字号
北京——上周日，中国各地再次爆发了反日游行。对此，中国政府态度暧昧，未放出明确信号是否会继续容忍这些有时带有暴力色彩的抗议活动。

北京的抗议活动比较有秩序，几百名抗议者聚集在日本大使馆门前，高呼中国对钓鱼岛（日本称尖阁诸岛）享有主权。据报道，包括上海、广州和青岛在内的其他城市也发生了抗议活动。

CHINATOPIX, via Associated Press
本周六，湖北武汉的游行者烧毁了一面日本国旗。
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上周六，有50多个城市出现了反日抗议活动。据报道，有些地方还出现了暴力事件。根据社交网站上发布的照片和接受电话采访的当地居民介绍，在青岛，松下电器(Panasonic Corporation)的一家工厂被人放火，丰田汽车(Toyota)的一家销售店也被洗劫。

中国各地要求抵制日货的呼声越来越高。很多日本零售商和餐厅被迫在窗口放置公告板，表示支持中国。周日，日本首相野田佳彦(Yoshihiko Noda)要求中国对当地日本居民和他们的财产提供保护。

中国共产党党报《人民日报》网站上的一篇署名社论文章称，应该对抗议活动表示同情。文章并没有为暴力活动辩护，但指出示威是中国人民爱国的表现。

文章说，“没有谁会怀疑祖国遭受欺侮时涌动的爱国激情，没有谁不能理解当祖国遭遇挑衅后同胞们的愤懑与抗争。因为，一个没有血性的民族注定要被欺凌，一个永远韬光养晦的国家必然受气挨打。”

然而，中国媒体也有文章呼吁，抗议应该采取“理性”、和平的方式。

美国国防部长利昂·E·帕内塔(Leon E. Panetta)将于周一访华。观察人士指出，政府可能会采取行动，来限制抗议活动。

帕内塔周日在抵达东京之前，在飞机上告诉随行记者，他担心太平洋地区的领土争端会增加“因为任何一方做出误判而导致暴力冲突的可能性”。

帕内塔说，在该地区的领土争端中，美国不站在任何国家那边，而是呼吁运用外交手段来和平地解决这些问题。他说，一种可行的方案就是让这些长期相互仇视的国家遵照东南亚国家联盟(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)所倡导的行为准则行事。

中国和日本都声称对该争议群岛拥有主权，但日本实际控制相关岛屿已经超过了一个世纪。日本政府从私人手中购买该群岛之后，中国政府加大了对日本施压的力度。日本方面表示，购岛行为是为了防止群岛被民族主义者利用，而中国则将此举视为日本加强对该地区控制的举措。作为回应，中国向岛屿附近的海域派遣了巡逻船。

根据日本和中国媒体报道，日本候任驻华大使西宫伸一(Shinichi Nishimiya)上周在东京病倒后，于周日去世，让这场外交争端变得更加复杂。上周，他被任命为驻华大使，原定将于下个月赴任。

中国官方媒体反复呼吁，要求日本归还钓鱼岛，还表示19世纪晚期日本殖民扩张之前，钓鱼岛一直处于中国的控制之下。在其他岛屿上，中国和日本也与其他国家存在领土争端。据信，这些岛屿附近的海域蕴藏着丰富的能源。

周日，有些证据显示一些中国政府官员参与了抗议活动。在西安，网络上的活动人士认出了其中一名官员为公安局长。

政治分析家李伟东表示，官方的容忍态度符合他们一贯的行为模式——利用大规模抗议活动促成其外交政策目标。李伟东在给朋友和同事发的短信中，将目前的抗议者比作义和团。这个带有宗教色彩的组织，在19世纪晚期到20世纪初曾被清政府利用来反抗外国入侵。

李卫东写道，“不敢打又谈不下来，只好动用义和团，用抵制日货来施压。”

Ian Johnson自北京、Thom Shanker 自东京报道。