Tiananmen square made off limits
Police will clear Tiananmen Square this morning to make way for a civic education ceremony to be attended by secondary school students in what is seen as a move to ward off potential anti-Japan protests.
Because of the ceremony, which will be held alongside an Olympics exhibition, the square will be closed from the end of the daily flag-raising ceremony, scheduled for 5.12am, to about noon, the Mirror newspaper reported.
Anti-Japan activists had issued calls on the internet for more demonstrations on May 1 - Labour Day - and May 4, which commemorates a movement that opposed foreign domination of China early last century. No protest was reported on Sunday following a publicity blitz and increased surveillance by the public security authorities.
Last month, tens of thousands of demonstrators in several cities pelted stones, eggs and bottles at Japanese diplomatic missions, shops and restaurants in protests against Japan's approval of school textbooks glossing over its wartime atrocities and its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
