Chinese make rare protest at Japanese embassy

BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of about 25 Chinese, including former forced laborers and at least one elderly woman forced into wartime sex slavery, made a rare but carefully choreographed protest outside Japan's embassy in Beijing on Thursday.

Beijing is wary of any public protests, even if the target is Japan's 1931-1945 invasion and occupation of parts of China, lest they spin out of control and turn against the Chinese government.

Chanting "the Japanese government must provide compensation" and "Japan must apologize", and carrying banners and pictures of Japanese atrocities during World War Two, the small group dispersed within about an hour.

"My leg was broken by them. I never expected that I could still be alive today. Now I am going to sue those Japanese monsters who treated me so cruelly," said Liu Qian, 86, fighting back tears.

"They seized us, took us to their military base and raped us. We were held there for 41 days. After being locked up, we could not even walk, only crawl," said Liu Mianhuan, 81, who was forced to serve as a "comfort woman" for Japanese Imperial forces.

Police closed off the street ahead of the protest and took down the identities of foreign reporters covering the event, but allowed it to go ahead.

They warned people queuing for visas at the Polish embassy opposite not to get involved.

A few protesters carried pictures of relatives who had been forcibly shipped to Japan to work in factories during the war, and had later died.

Some former workers who took part were so old and frail they had to be supported by younger protesters.

In 2005, a push by Japan for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat sparked sometimes violent anti-Japanese street protests in cities across China, with demonstrators stoning Japanese diplomatic buildings.

In April Japan's top court rejected two compensation claims by Chinese who had suffered at Japanese hands during World War Two.

China's Foreign Ministry said Japan had still not properly dealt with the matter.

"The grave crimes left over from history are a serious issue," spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular briefing. "We hope the Japanese government can seriously handle the issue and meet the reasonable demands of China laborers."

Dozens of wartime compensation suits have been filed against the Japanese government and companies associated with its aggression in the first half of the 20th century, but almost all have been rejected by Japanese courts.

Sino-Japanese relations have been icy for much of the past half-decade, largely because of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a shrine to Japan's war dead. Beijing sees the Yasukuni Shrine as a symbol of Japan's past militarism because some convicted war criminals are honored there.