Japan calls China anti-Japanese rally 'extremely regrettable'
Japan called an anti-Japanese rally in Beijing that broke windows at its embassy "extremely regrettable" and called on China to ensure Japanese residents' safety amid rising tension between the countries.
Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi on Saturday expressed the government's regrets to a Chinese diplomat in Tokyo, Cheng Yonghua, who said he would forward the message to Beijing, a foreign ministry statement said.
Yachi said that demonstrators pelted the embassy in Beijing with bottles and stones, breaking the window glass.
"It is extremely regrettable that this kind of damage was done to our country's embassy," Yachi, the top bureaucrat in the foreign ministry, told Cheng, according to the statement.
Protesters pelted the embassy with bottles and cans, hurled rocks into the windows of a Japanese restaurant and ran amok in front of the Japanese ambassador's residence.
Up to 10,000 people initially joined the demonstration, called to protest Japan's treatment of its wartime past and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
"We strongly call on (China) to take appropriate measures urgently to secure the safety of the embassy while keeping thorough guard on our other diplomatic missions in China to prevent a recurrence," he said.
"We also renew our strong request that (China) take thorough guard and other necessary measures to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals and normal operations of Japanese companies," he said.
The police deployed a heavy presence throughout Beijing during the demonstration. There were minor scuffles with protesters in an apparent attempt to keep traffic going, but there were no overt attempts to stop the march.
Japan ignited a fresh row with China on Tuesday by authorizing for school use a nationalist-written history textbook that Beijing says glosses over Japanese wartime atrocities.
The Asian neighbors have increasingly been at loggerheads over Japan's bloody World War II occupation of China and a dispute over scarce energy resources.
At the same time, trade has skyrocketed. China overtakook the United States as Japan's top commercial partner in 2004 as firms eye China's vast labor pool and emerging middle-class consumer market.
The foreign ministry reported April 1 that the number of Japanese people living in China shot up by 28.5 percent year-on-year in 2004, with Shanghai now having the third biggest Japanese expatriate population following New York and Los Angeles.