Four Japanese residents assaulted

A group of Chinese men attacked four local Japanese residents and their Chinese colleague at a restaurant in Huangpu district last week, a Japanese newspaper reported Tuesday.

The four men, who all worked for a Japanese company in Shanghai, were hanging out Thursday night with their Chinese colleague at a Japanese restaurant on the South Bund, according to the chief of general affairs surnamed Ishikawa at the Consulate-General of Japan in Shanghai.

Around 9 pm, the five men were having dinner outside the restaurant when three Chinese men approached their table and asked if they were from Japan. When they confirmed they were Japanese, the Chinese interlocutors began punching and kicking them, Ishikawa said. "The victims said they had never met these Chinese men," he told the Global Times.

The attackers hit the Chinese colleague in the head with a wine bottle and the glass shards from the bottle cut his hand, Ishikawa said. Three of the Japanese men suffered bruises.

The three Chinese men ran off after the attack, according to a witness who posted photos that showed the smashed tables and broken plates.

Police have arrested three suspects, who were drunk at the time, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported.

"Such actions hurt the feelings of ordinary Japanese, especially those in China who contribute to the local economy," said Li Xiushi, director of the Japan Study Center at Shanghai Institute for International Studies. "Chinese people should separate the actions of the Japanese government's from those of ordinary Japanese people."

Shen Dingli, Executive Vice Dean of the Insitute of International Affairs at Fudan University, said that the attack was an isolated case and people should express their political opinions legally under the law.

"This is a criminal case. It should be dealt with according to law, regardless of the nationality of the people involved," Shen told the Global Times.

The Japanese consulate-general said there have been at least six attacks on local Japanese residents, all of whom suffered minor injuries, since the Diaoyu Islands dispute began to escalate, according to a news report on Phoenix Satellite TV.

The victims' employer sent out a company e-mail asking staff to avoid speaking Japanese in public because anti-Japanese sentiment has yet to calm down in China, according to the newspaper.

Several Japanese residents approached by the Global Times expressed some concern about their safety in Shanghai.

A woman surnamed Watanabe, who has lived in Shanghai for three and a half years, said she felt it was little dangerous outside the city's Japanese community.