Beijing clamps down on protesters as mass anti-Japan rallies subside

China moved quickly on Wednesday to snuff out more anti-Japan protests after days of angry demonstrations over a territorial dispute forced Japanese businesses to shut their doors and threatened an economic backlash.

Relations between Asia’s two biggest economies have faltered badly, hitting their lowest point in decades on Tuesday when China marked the highly charged anniversary of Japan’s 1931 occupation of its giant neighbour.

Tensions had run high on land and at sea, with four days of major protests in cities across China and Japanese and Chinese boats stalking each other in waters around a group of East China Sea islands at the centre of the dispute, known by Japan as the Senkaku and by China as the Diaoyu.

“It seems the protests in front of our embassy have subsided,” the Japanese embassy in Beijing, the focal point of protests, said in an e-mail to Japanese citizens.

The embassy cited a message from the Beijing public security bureau saying “the authorities ask for co-operation that there be no protests in the embassy district”. Beijing’s public security bureau was not immediately available for comment.

Outside the embassy, police moved on a lone protester who had been shouting “Defeat small Japan” early on Wednesday.