adminAs protests continued yesterday over the territorial dispute, China pledged to protect Japanese citizens and property and urged anti-Japan protesters to express themselves in an “orderly, rational and lawful” way.
Hong Lei, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said it was up to Japan to correct its ways and the direction of developments was now in Japan’s hands.
China’s pledge came after Canon announced that it will stop production at three of its four Chinese factories yesterday and today, citing concerns over employees’ safety. Panasonic has taken similar steps at its plants in China.
Toyota Motor Corp said it is tallying losses from the violence, including a suspected arson attack on a dealership in eastern China’s Shandong province.
All Nippon Airways Co reported a rise in cancellations on Japan-bound flights from China.
Anti-Japanese protests across China in recent days erupted over a dispute over a group of small islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries but controlled by Tokyo.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Singapore, Tony Nash, managing director of business consultancy IHS, said that as a result of the Japanese tsunami and the Thai floods last year, Japanese companies had already started reconsidering new locations for their supply chains, such as Indonesia and Myanmar.
However, “it is a bit of surprise that it is a reaction to this kind of event”, he said.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party, which rarely allows street protests, opened the door to the display of public anger after Japan’s decision last week to buy from a private Japanese owner a chain of islands which Tokyo calls the Senkaku and Beijing calls the Diaoyu.
China responded by sending patrol ships into the waters around them.
The protests flared again in Beijing and other cities on Saturday, when demonstrators besieged the Japanese embassy, hurling rocks, eggs and bottles, and testing cordons of anti-riot police.
Thousands of people continued protesting in Beijing on Sunday.
The Japanese government has been warning its citizens about even larger scale protests today, when China marks its memorial day for Japan’s war-time occupation of parts of China.
Meanwhile, Chinese warships have been conducting live ammunition drills in the East China Sea.
The mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party said yesterday that Japan’s economy could suffer for up to 20 years if China chose to impose sanctions over the escalating territorial row.
Trade sanctions between Asia’s two biggest economies could cast a pall over growth on the continent, which major Western countries are counting on to drive recovery from the global slowdown.
A commentary in the People’s Daily newspaper said the Japanese economy had already experienced two lost decades from the 1990s and was suffering further weakness in the aftermath of the world financial crisis and 2011 earthquake.
“Japan’s economy lacks immunity to Chinese economic measures,” the commentary said although it added that given the interdependency of the two, sanctions would be a “double-edged sword” for China. — Al Jazeera.
Online Reporter