China tightens security to head off anti-Japan demos

[norml]

China tightens security to head off anti-Japan demos
15 Aug 2005 01:21:04 GMT

Source: Reuters



BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China on Monday stepped up security outside the Japanese ambassador's residence, the scene of violent anti-Japan protests earlier this year, and marked the 60th anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War Two by calling on Tokyo to face up to its past.

The house in the northeast Beijing was the focus of demonstrations in April sparked by Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and the revision of a Japanese history textbook that critics say whitewashes wartime atrocities.

At least two Japanese cabinet ministers were set to mark Monday's anniversary with visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine for the war dead, a site China sees as a symbol of its wartime aggression.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was not expected to visit, but Chinese media said his past visits and the fact the cabinet ministers would go showed Tokyo's disregard for its wartime foes.

"Koizumi stubbornly persists in his efforts to please Japan's right-wingers, who insist on the belief that sweeping the dirt under the carpet is the only action they need to take," the China Daily said in an editorial.


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