Japan says torch protests won't affect Hu visit
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan said Monday that it did not expect anti-Beijing protests during its leg of the Olympic torch relay to affect a landmark visit next week by Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Protesters on Saturday hurled rubbish and flares as the Olympic torch passed through the mountain resort of Nagano, where brawls between Chinese supporters and protesters left four people injured.
"I don't think that the torch relay would have any effect on the visit to Japan," chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said of Hu's trip.
Machimura said the government did not think there was any "grave disruption" to the relay, which was briefly interrupted several times when protesters tried to rush towards the torch.
"It would have been better if it had been able to take place without security guards. But when there was a realistic expectation of a disruption, it was inevitable for us to prepare security," he told a news conference.
Hu is due on May 6 until May 10 marking only the second visit ever by a Chinese president to Japan and the first such trip in a decade.
Japan and China have been trying to repair uneasy ties dating to the legacy of Japanese aggression before World War II.
China had hoped the Olympics would showcase its rising status, but instead the torch relay has been beset by protests over Beijing's rule in Tibet and its human rights record.
Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Sunday called on China to increase transparency over Tibet, saying it was difficult to believe there was no suppression of human rights in the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan region.
During the torch relay in Japan, police arrested six people including one from Taiwan after they had allegedly tried to disrupt the event.
Four of them were released as of Monday, but police still hold the other two and are planning to send their cases to prosecutors who will decide whether to charge them, a Nagano police spokesman said.
One of them, the Taiwanese man, tried to rush towards the torch before being quickly tackled by a group of security guards. Television footage showed him shouting loudly, "Free Tibet!", in English.
The other man still detained barged into the street and allegedly threw eggs at the runners, the spokesman said.
