9.18 events :Japanese businesses close as China burns over anniversary

                    In BEIJING: About 1000 fishing boats mobilised by China are nearing an island chain controlled by Japan, as the quarrel between the countries resulted in Japanese businesses suspending their Chinese operations.

Chinese fishing boats, which appear suspiciously well-drilled and organised, have clashed with the Japanese Coast Guard over the islands in the past, but never in such numbers.

                    Japan's Coast Guard reported seeing fishing boats outside the territorial waters of the islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, Kyodo News reported yesterday.

                    They may be joined by six Chinese patrol ships, which briefly entered Japanese waters last Friday in a show of defiance. The dispute over the islands, which has been rumbling for decades, intensified last week after Japan announced it had bought some of the archipelago for the nation from a Japanese family.

                    That enraged China, which also claims sovereignty over the chain. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Chinese protested in more than 50 cities, overturning Japanese cars and burning the Japanese flag.

                    A number of Japanese businesses have suspended their China operations. Panasonic, Canon, Honda, Mazda and Toyota have halted their factories, while almost 200 7-eleven convenience stores have shut and Uniqlo, the clothes retailer, has removed the signs from its shop and shut its doors.

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                    ''I want to leave,'' said a Nissan executive, who declined to be named, in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. ''Protests near my home were horrifying over the weekend.''

                    Some of the protests have been violent, while others involved vandalism, looting and arson. A man burned his Honda Civic outside one of the carmaker's showrooms in Shanghai. However, there have been no reports of serious injuries to Japanese citizens in China.

                    The anger flared again yesterday, the 81st anniversary of the Mukden incident, in which the Japanese army blew up a railway in Manchuria to serve as a pretext for an invasion.

                    Thousands of people hemmed in by riot police protested outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing. As a helicopter hovered overhead, demonstrators waving Chinese flags marched up and down a street outside the embassy that had been blocked off. Japanese retailers in China closed their doors and covered up their logos to thwart attacks after car dealerships were torched over the weekend.

                   ''We're not just protesting Diaoyu Island,'' said Liu Lin, 53, who took a day off to demonstrate. ''We're angry because the Japanese did not learn their lessons from World War II like Germany. Instead they are trying to steal our territory again.''

                   The US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, said in Tokyo both sides should calm down. Mr Panetta also disclosed he would meet China's president-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, in Beijing.

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