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A plainclothes policeman catches a woman during a police crackdown on prostitution in Quanzhou, Fujian province, October 29, 2011. China should remove criminal and administrative penalties against sex workers which often lead to serious police abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on May 14, 2013. The abuses include torture, beatings, physical assaults, fines and arbitrary detentions of up to two years, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses and state agents, according to the report. Prostitution is not permitted under Chinese law, although the industry has boomed since the country launched economic reforms in 1978. REUTERS/Stringer

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U.S. defense chief urges China, Japan to exercise restraint

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BEIJING | Tue Sep 18, 2012 1:42am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reiterated a call on Tuesday for China and Japan to exercise restraint in their dispute over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

"With respect to these current tensions, we are urging calm and restraint by all sides and encourage them to maintain open channels of communication in order to resolve these disputes diplomatically and peacefully," he told reporters in Beijing.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Writing by Ben Blanchard, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
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