But it was in Beijing that there were no protests permitted as promised
- From: goodgutgut@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 23 Dec 2005 15:18:54 -0800
'SENSE OF SAFETY' PREVAILS
Gingerly, Japanese business in Shanghai resumes
By RALPH JENNINGS
SHANGHAI (Kyodo) Whoever owned the Japanese restaurant opposite the
Japanese Consulate in Shanghai left within four months after a crowd of
people vandalized both the restaurant and consulate in an anti-Japan
fury in April.
News photo
Workers remodel a Japanese-style restaurant across from the Japanese
Consulate in Shanghai after an ownership change following vandalism
during the April 16 anti-Japan demonstrations.
But the new occupant, the No. 1 Japanese Casual Restaurant, has done
smooth business since opening in September, said general manager Takuya
Tomiyama.
A sense of safety now prevails over the heavily Japanese-accented
consulate commercial district because government authorities are
committed to stopping any further demonstrations, Tomiyama said.
"Maybe that's not official, but everybody understands," Tomiyama said
at the beginning of a dinner hour in December as work crews remodeled
the doorway.
The No. 1 Japanese Casual Restaurant competes with Ajikura, another of
the some 10 Japanese-style venues vandalized April 16, when an
estimated 20,000 people marched from the Bund to the consulate to
protest Japan's approval of nationalist history textbooks and its push
to join the U.N. Security Council, among other gripes.
The textbook and Security Council issues upset Chinese people because
they associate both with the Japanese invasion of China.
Ajikura, a three-year-old Japanese restaurant one block from the
consulate, spent more than 8 million yuan (about $991,000) to rebuild
and reopen two weeks after being hit by protesters, manager Dong Lin
said.
The reconstruction generated publicity, Dong said, so the 380-sq.-meter
restaurant now gets 200 to 300 customers a day, more than before the
demonstrations. A second restaurant is under construction.
"This was the equivalent of an advertisement," Dong said, and that
helped because "Japanese cuisine is under intense competition."
These stories describe how a section of the massive Japanese business
community of 5,664 companies has rebuilt in Shanghai since the violence
of April.
Small operations directly hit by the sudden anti-Japan demonstrations
have largely bounced back, businesspeople say.
They attribute the rebound to strong hints that a similar demonstration
will not happen again.
Shanghai officials condemned the demonstrations and visited more than
200 Japanese businesses to assure them the city was safe, said Liu
Jinping, vice director of the Shanghai Foreign Investment Commission.
He said city representatives also consoled owners of the vandalized
restaurants.
"The demonstrations were something we don't want to see," Liu said.
"This matter will not affect business. If you ask them now if they
think Shanghai is safe, they'd say it's safe."
Shanghai now as before the demonstrations is full of Japanese
entertainment venues and Japanese-language signs are common on
storefronts.
"Since then there's been no boycotts of Japanese products at all," Liu
said.
Except for four consulate-area restaurants that will be torn down this
month for redevelopment, the damaged diners have all reopened.
They paid their own repair bills, said Liu, as the city has not offered
any compensation. Damage included broken windows, broken cash registers
and paint blots on exterior walls.
Following the demonstrations, which started as a peaceful march up
Yanan Road, Shanghai's major east-west route, two major local
convenience store chains briefly stopped selling Asahi beer and
Ajinomoto food products, said Masaki Yabuuchi, president of the Japan
External Trade Organization in Shanghai.
Japanese travel to Shanghai dropped between April and October to about
half the 3.33 million tourists and businesspeople who came in 2004, the
height of a steady increase from 1.3 million people in 1995, JETRO and
Japanese airlines say.
The numbers recovered to 75 percent of normal last month and should
keep rising, airlines say.
"Sightseeing tours have decreased, but business trips have increased
because of the hot economy in Shanghai, so our business has not been
affected seriously," said Hitoshi Yanagida, Shanghai administration
manager with All Nippon Airways, which runs 35 Japan-Shanghai flights
per week.
On June 1, the municipal tourism commission told Japanese travel
representatives Shanghai was "safe" and that it "welcomes" Japanese
visitors, Yanagida said.
Toshiharu Arakuta, a vice president of Japan Airlines, which operates
49 flights per week between Japan and Shanghai, expects relatively full
flights unless China's bird flu caseload increases.
Japanese daily goods and cosmetics companies delayed until fall their
scheduled May 1 promotion events in Shanghai because the demonstrations
had just ended, Yabuuchi said.
Shiseido Co., the highest profile Japanese cosmetics brand among
Chinese consumers, did not delay any promotions or lose any money in
Shanghai because of the demonstrations, a company spokeswoman said.
No other Japanese business sectors were hurt, according to Yabuuchi.
Shanghai shopkeepers say the level of Japanese clientele has held
steady since April, indicating no mass exodus of the city's 40,000
Japanese expatriates.
Some locals recall with mild humor April 16, when screaming mobs of
demonstrators, with a sprinkling of police, forced their shops or
entire malls to close temporarily. Some protesters also mounted cartoon
effigies of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi above the restaurant
doors. Two Japanese citizens were mobbed and injured.
The Japanese Consulate has not been repaired, as
government-to-government compensation talks continue, a consulate
spokeswoman said. Demonstrators threw rocks and ink bombs at the
low-rise prefab building, breaking nine windows and leaving black
stains on outer walls. The spokeswoman said damage did not affect
day-to-day work.
The demonstrations still resonate in Tokyo though, Yabuuchi said.
Because of the mass protests, preceded by the 2003 SARS outbreak and
amid China's reluctance to raise the value of its currency, bigger
Japanese companies with a presence in Shanghai are reconsidering how
much work to do in China, Yabuuchi said.
Some manufacturers and other types of businesses are waiting to enter
China, slowing down expansion or beefing up offices at home or in
Southeast Asia to "redistribute risk" in case of further troubles, he
said.
Japanese investment in Shanghai for 2005 should roughly equal that of
2004, when companies invested $6.54 billion, he added. That would make
2005 the first year since 2000 without an increase.
"The average Japanese enterprise, if it can choose Thailand or Vietnam,
would not come here," Yabuuchi said.
The Japan Times: Dec. 22, 2005
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