<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/international/asia/11japan.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&position=>
The New York Times April 11, 2005 Tokyo Protests Anti-Japan Rallies in China By NORIMITSU ONISHI OKYO, April 10 - Japan lodged a formal protest against China on Sunday after violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in Beijing, even as marches in front of Japanese government offices and businesses widened to southern China. The Japanese foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, summoned the Chinese ambassador, Wang Yi, here on Sunday morning. Afterward, Mr. Wang said the Chinese government condemned the demonstrations on Saturday in which protesters threw rocks at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and vandalized Japanese businesses. "We formally demanded China's apology and compensation," Mr. Machimura said after the meeting, adding that Mr. Wang had not apologized. As the two men talked, however, thousands of Chinese demonstrators reportedly marched on the Japanese Consulate in Guangzhou and staged anti-Japanese demonstrations in Shenzhen, both in southern China. The ptotests over the weekend were described by the news media here as the biggest anti-Japanese protests in China since diplomatic relations between the countries were normalized in 1972. The marches have set off a steep decline in the already troubled diplomatic relations between Asia's big powers and threatened to harm their important economic relationship. Japan has recently adopted a more assertive foreign policy, and its relations with South Korea have deteriorated as well, so the dispute with China could leave Japan isolated in Asia. Its simultaneous disputes with China and South Korea, two countries invaded and occupied by Japan, have been rooted in differences over the past, including the approval last week of Japanese junior high school textbooks that critics in and outside Japan say whitewash Japanese militarism. But the fight over the past has also crystallized into a fight over the future, as South Korea and China have each moved to oppose Japan's effort to win a permanent seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council. South Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Sam Hoon, recently said that "a country that does not have the trust of its neighboring countries because of its lack of reflection on the past" could not play the "role of a world leader." In China, the marchers were protesting Japan's effort to gain a Security Council seat as well as the textbooks. The Ministry of Education's approval of textbooks that contain significant revisions of painful historical events is one of a number of signs of a rightward shift here. The textbooks, for example, play down the issue of the so-called wartime comfort women, Asian women forced by the Japanese military to work as sex slaves, as well as the issue of Asians brought to Japan to be forced laborers. The new textbooks avoid mentioning any figures about the Nanking massacre in China, in which 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese soldiers. South Korea was particularly incensed that the textbooks categorically stated that islets claimed by both countries, called Takeshima here and Tokdo in South Korea, belonged to Japan and were illegally occupied by South Korea. In another point of contention, China has demanded that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan stop visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined. China also condemned Japan for recently pledging to join the United States in defending Taiwan against China. Japanese politicians, however, have dismissed the complaints of China and South Korea, saying they are trying to exploit the past to keep Japan from claiming its rightful place in the world. Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, said Sunday that anger at social problems in China, including widening income gaps, was really behind the weekend marches. "Japan is an outlet to vent that anger," Mr. Abe said in an appearance on the "Sunday Project" television program. "Since the Tiananmen incident, these kinds of demonstrations were severely restricted, but the authorities tolerated these kinds of anti-Japanese gatherings, and the people themselves used these anti-Japanese marches," he said. "Because of the anti-Japanese education there, it's easy to light the fire of these demonstrations and, because of the Internet, it's easy to assemble a lot of people." China's and South Korea's complaints have only strengthened the hands of conservative politicians like Mr. Abe or Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, who take an unapologetic stance toward Japan's neighbors. Under Mr. Ishihara, whose views were regarded as extremist only a few years ago but are now mainstream, the Tokyo metropolitan government has for the second year punished teachers who refused to stand and sing "Kimigayo," the national anthem, a symbol of militarism to many inside and outside the country, or refused to force their students to do so. During this spring's graduation ceremonies, 53 such teachers were punished. In another telling sign of Japan's growing nationalism, Green Day, now celebrated on April 29, will almost certainly be renamed "Showa Day" soon to commemorate the birthday of the late Emperor Hirohito, who led Japan during its conquest of Asia and who is a revered symbol of Japanese rightists. The previously named Emperor's Day was changed to Green Day in 1989, after Hirohito's death, partly in consideration of Asian sensitivities. Two attempts in the last five years to rename the holiday for Hirohito failed. -- ----------------- R. A. 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