WORLD : Japan Sends 491 Chinese Home
Japan sent 491 Chinese nationals, some in tears, back to China by boat today in the largest deportation of Chinese refugees who streamed into Japan during last year’s political unrest in China.
“Our understanding is they came here for economic related purposes,” said Taizo Watanabe, the Foreign Ministry’s chief spokesman. “They had been living in China and were not under political suppression.”
The Chinese, 450 men and 41 women who had been kept in detention centers since their arrival in Japan, were loaded onto a chartered Chinese ship at the port of Nagasaki by 220 police and several immigration authorities. Protesters demonstrated nearby.
Japan has refrained from harshly criticizing China following the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last June and has refused to give refugee status to the 1,763 mostly Chinese boat people who arrived in Japan last May.
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