China removes monument to Japanese settlers: report+

BEIJING, Aug. 6 Kyodo -
A stone monument in Heilongjiang Province dedicated to Japanese settlers in the former Manchuria has been removed, the Fazhi Wanbao evening newspaper reported Saturday.
The move came after five men defaced the monument Wednesday with red paint and smashed it with hammers.
The activists, who are affiliated with the China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, told reporters that they have no regrets about what they did, Hong Kong media reported Friday.
''From the perspective of law, I admit what we did was illegal and we are not expecting others to copy what we did,'' Wu Qingjun, one of the five, was quoted as telling Hong Kong reporters in Beijing.
After being briefly detained by police, the five men were released on Thursday.
The Global Times, an English-language newspaper under the People's Daily, published a photo in its Saturday edition showing five men, three of them wielding hammers, in front of the defaced monument.
The authorities in Fangzheng County ''have been under fire for erecting a monument bearing names of Japanese paramilitary immigrants,'' the Global Times said.
The monument, erected in July, is engraved with the names of around 250 Japanese settlers.
The Global Times said the 6.9-meter-high monument was erected by the Fangzheng County government as a memorial to around 5,000 Japanese settlers.
A county official was quoted as saying the monument was to ''record the guilt of the Japanese, instead of singing praises to attract investment'' from Japan.
Since 2006, the county has adopted a series of policies aimed at attracting foreign investment, mainly from Japan, the paper said.
''The county might have had its reasons for erecting the monument, but many Chinese, especially those who have taken a hard line against Japan over its invasion history, are not buying the explanation,'' the paper said in an editorial. ''As a result, the county government needs to find the courage to make an apology and dismantle the inappropriate monument.''
Japan-China relations deteriorated last year after the Japan Coast Guard arrested a Chinese trawler captain following collisions with Japanese patrol vessels off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The islets, which China calls Diaoyu, are administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan.
==Kyodo
2011-08-06 23:13:23