BEIJING, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Thousands of Chinese protesters took to the streets in four cities Sunday to condemn Japan for claiming sovereignty over a group of Pacific islands.
The long-simmering international dispute is over the islands Japan calls the Senkaku Islands and China calls the Diaoyu Islands, south of Japan off China's east coast.
Japan's Kyodo news agency said thousands of protesters marched in four cities carrying placards that said "Get out of the Diaoyu Islands, Japan."
The demonstrations have been going on for more than a week, the report said. The protests are being urged by Internet messages that also advocate a boycott of Japanese products, the report said.
The disagreement is widely seen as based on potential natural resources.
On the diplomatic front, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Chinese diplomats in Washington have cautioned the United States against applying terms of the 1960 U.S.-Japan security treaty to the dispute.
That agreement has the United States agreeing that Japan has rights to the islands.
Further muddying the spat is a territorial claim of the islands by Taiwan, a Chinese-administered island nation that names the chain Tiaoyutai.
