Japan, China at odds over protests

BEIJING – Japan’s foreign minister traveled to Beijing on Sunday to protest anti-Japan demonstrations that have sharply raised tensions between the two Asian powerhouses, but China refused to apologize.

“The Chinese government has never done anything that wronged the Japanese people,” Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told his counterpart, Nobutaka Machimura. Li blamed the tension on Japan.

The exchange came as protests gripped China for a third weekend over what Beijing says is Japan’s whitewashing of its wartime aggression in textbooks.

Other flashpoints include Tokyo’s effort to gain a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, competition for natural gas in the East China Sea and Japan’s decision to help the United States defend Taiwan.

As many as 20,000 people marched through China’s glittering financial capital of Shanghai on Saturday.

Hundreds of police looked on as the crowd hurled paintballs and tomatoes at the Japanese consulate, shattering windows and attacking Japanese businesses and cars.

On Sunday, more protests broke out across the country, including in Dongguan, Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in the south, Chengdu in central China and Shenyang in the northeast.

Tokyo denounced the demonstrations and demanded that Beijing protect Japanese citizens and diplomatic facilities.