http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1227775/1/.html
Anti-Japan protesters surrender in China
Posted: 24 September 2012 2212 hrs
Photos 1 of 1
Chinese riot police stand firm against anti-Japan protesters during a
protest in the southern city of Shenzhen on September 18. (AFP/File - Peter
Parks)
BEIJING: Five anti-Japan demonstrators who turned violent at a protest in
Shenzhen surrendered to police, state media said on Monday as China began to
question whether protests over disputed islands went too far.
The five men gave themselves up after police launched a social media campaign
targeting demonstrators who damaged property in the southern city, the state
news agency Xinhua said, with 350 calls received by Sunday night.
Some of the nationwide protests this month over the East China Sea islands
known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan turned violent, with Japanese
property and businesses targeted by furious demonstrators.
The islands are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing and Taipei, and
tensions peaked after the Japanese government bought three of them from their
private owners.
Beijing has kept up its rhetoric in recent days, and has sent ships to the area
according to the Japan Coast Guard, but has prevented any repetition of
large-scale protests within China.
There was huge public sympathy for 51-year-old Li Jianli, a Chinese citizen
said by domestic media to have been left partially paralysed after being
brutally attacked by a mob for driving a Japanese-made car.
The attack in the northern city of Xian, in Shaanxi province, was heavily
discussed on China's popular Sina Weibo microblogging site - the country's
version of Twitter - where it was 're-tweeted' more than 100,000 times and
received almost 60,000 comments by Monday morning.
"Ignorant. Utterly ignorant. This is not patriotism, this is an ignorant and
brutal act. It's illegal, and the criminal should be brought to justice," said
one Weibo poster.
"I really don't understand why Chinese are always bullying Chinese. Is this
patriotism?" said another.
- AFP/de
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