More Protests in Shanghai

Another big anti-Japanese protest took place in Shanghai, with thousands of riot police looking on as marchers threw bottles, paint balloons and chunks of pavement at the Japanese Consulate:

Asked by a reporter whether anything could be done to rein in the violence, a Chinese officer answered, "By whom?" and then walked away as if annoyed. In several hours, there appeared to be only one arrest...

...The lenience on Saturday provoked wry comments from many ordinary Chinese. "They say it is fine to denounce Japan, but the government must know that people have even more serious grievances against the state of affairs in our country," said a man named Zhang, who declined to provide his full name.

Another man, a 23-year-old barber in central Shanghai, where several shops catering to Japanese were destroyed, said he had nothing against Japan or Japanese people. "People are taking part in this march because they aren't allowed to protest anything else," he said. "In your country, people are allowed to demonstrate freely, so something like this probably wouldn't attract many people. Here we are never given a chance to protest, so everyone wants to see it for himself, to be there."

Note to the barber: Zhejiang Province and Huankantou village aren't too far from Shanghai...