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ColinHowell (Offline)
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Posts: 79
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Mountain View, California
09-21-2010, 07:09 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM View Post
A few weeks? It has already blown over. There were less than 100 protesters in Beijing. BEIJING!

There were even fewer in Shanghai and other cities.
I think it's much too premature to say that this has blown over yet.

The protests mentioned by you and the China Post article were on September 18. The next day, September 19, a Japanese court extended the fishing captain's detention by 10 days (in keeping with Japanese law, which allows them to hold the captain for up to 20 days while deciding whether to file charges). In response, China suspended high-level diplomatic exchanges with Japan the same day. Today (September 21) China ruled out a meeting with Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan at the UN to resolve the dispute, stating the timing was not proper. These most recent acts have been widely reported.

The low protest turnouts are noteworthy, but I don't think they can safely be interpreted as representing apathy among the Chinese public. The China Post article claims that Chinese authorities were keeping a lid on things to maintain public order, and other reports agree. But the extension of the captain's detention has apparently triggered a large number of online protests. Or at least that's what Chinese news sources have claimed, e.g. Xinhua.
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