China protests: Panasonic suspends some operations

at three of its Chinese factories.
The attacks are a part of wider protests that have spread across China and hurt other firms, including car manufacturer Toyota.
They started after Japan said it had agreed a deal to buy a chain of disputed islands in the East China Sea from their private Japanese owner. China has maintained its sovereignty over the islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan.
A spokesperson for Panasonic told the BBC that the firm would continue to monitor the situation over the next two days. The disputed islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, are uninhabited but resource-rich. They have been a contentious issue between the two countries, and were the focus of a major diplomatic row between them in 2010.
The dispute flared up again over the weekend after Tokyo said it had agreed to purchase them, leading to thousands of protesters taking to the streets in various parts of China. The demonstrations saw protesters burning Japanese flags and targeting Japanese-made cars.
There have been reports of a Toyota dealership in China being damaged during the demonstrations.
Yesterday, the Bloomberg news agency reported that Canon had also suspended operations in three of its factories in China until 18 September.
Canon did not immediately respond to a query from the BBC to confirm the reports. Analysts said the dispute had started to affect Japanese firms operating in China.
“We are definitely seeing that Japanese companies are being directly affected by the protests,” Shaun Rein of China Market Research Group told the BBC.
The attacks on some Japanese businesses have raised fears about the impact of the protests on Japanese investment in China.
They said that the protests could result in some Japanese firms starting to look beyond China for further expansion. — bbc.co.uk.