Anti-Japanese Protests Flare in China Over Disputed Islands

Chinese demonstrators burn a Japanese flag during an anti-Japanese protest over the disputed Diaoyu Islands, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, outside the Japanese Embassy on September 15, 2012 in Beijing, ChinaPhotograph by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
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“Never forget the national humiliation,” and “Protect China’s inseparable territory,” read some. More disturbing: “Let’s kill all Japanese,” and “Nuclear extermination for wild Japanese dogs.”

Those are some of the sentiments irate Chinese are displaying on protest banners across the country, as demonstrators in more than a dozen cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Nanjing take to the streets, angry about Japanese control of the disputed Senkaku islands—known as Diaoyu in China—an uninhabited but possibly resource-rich atoll in the East China Sea.