On Saturday, Oct. 2, over 2,670 demonstrators carrying Hinomaru Japanese flags marched in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park to protest the Kan government's soft handling of a long-running territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands (known in Chinese as Diaoyutai), which was rekindled on Sept. 7 when the crew of a Chinese fishing trawler was detained after their vessel collided with two Japanese Coast Guard ships.
The demonstration, organized by a nationalist group, featured controversial ex-Air Self Defense Force General Toshio Tamogami as one of the speakers. (Tamogami became a public figure when he was forced to retire in 2008, after airing politically incorrect views in a magazine article.) Rallies were also held in 16 other locations in Japan.
Web news site J-Cast (Oct. 4) noted that while the demonstration was covered by such foreign media as CNN, AFP and the Wall Street Journal, as well as Chinese news agencies, mainstream Japanese news organizations gave scant coverage. When J-cast contacted the main commercial networks and NHK to ask why they had refrained from coverage, their standard reply was, "We don't comment on what determines our coverage."