Thousands of Chinese protesters marched in at least three cities on Saturday to vent their anger at Japan following a nasty spat involving disputed islands, state media and witnesses said.
Meanwhile nationalist groups rallied in Japan on Saturday against China's "invasion" into Japanese islands, scuffling with men who tried to block the march through central Tokyo streets.
In China, demonstrators in the cities of Xian, Chengdu and Zhengzhou shouted slogans asserting Chinese sovereignty over the islands and called for boycotts of Japanese goods, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Some protesters had learned about the planned demonstrations on the Internet and came to join, it said, but added that the protests were peaceful and watched closely by police stationed along marching routes.
In Japan, Japanese national flags fluttered in a park in the capital as more than 1,000 people gathered for the second major rally since a bitter territorial row flared up over a maritime incident last month near the disputed islands.
Banners carried such messages as "Japan is in danger!" and "Don't forgive invader China".
As demonstrators left the park and started a march, two young men, believed to be Chinese, sat in the street to stop the rally.
One of their banners warned against exclusionism and read: "Stop fuelling harassment towards Chinese residents in Japan".
China broke off contacts with Tokyo last month after Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat captain whose vessel collided with Japanese coastguard ships near the disputed islands.
Both sides claim the islands in the East China Sea which are known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.
The two close trading partners have since moved to patch up the row, but the protests showed lingering public anger at Japan, which is still resented in China for its brutal World War II invasion and occupation of parts of China.
