Japanese Car Makers Grapple with Japan Bashing in China

Chinese look at overturned Japanese cars after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. In relatively more Japan-friendly parts of southern China such as Guangdong, Toyota Motor Corp, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co are returning to sales levels near those seen before a diplomatic row last September over a group of rocky, uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.

Locals stand next to a Nissan car dealership store after it was attacked by anti-Japan protesters in Qingdao, Shandong province. A tougher challenge for the Japanese brands are the coastal and northeastern provinces such as Shandong, which overtook Guangdong as China's biggest car market in 2009, Zhejiang and Jiangsu - part of a large swathe of the country that Japan invaded and occupied during the late 1930s.

A protester destroys an overturned Japanese-brand police car with a metal rod during an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It's in these faster-emerging markets that the Japanese are struggling to win back Chinese hearts and wallets.

A Toyota car with a sticker attached to the rear can be seen along a main road in central Beijing. The sticker reads, "Japanese car, Chinese heart". Over the past decade, Japanese automakers set up a strong base in Guangdong, investing heavily in factories that now form an assembly cluster fed by Japanese parts suppliers in the area. According to industry consultant R.L. POLK & Co, Japanese cars had 41 percent market share in Guangdong in 2011, though that has dipped a few percentage points since last year's dispute.

Cars parked inside a Nissan dealership store are seen damaged and overturned after an anti-Japan protest in Qingdao, Shandong province. The northern and eastern provinces are now eclipsing Guangdong. POLK says Guangdong has been overtaken by both Shandong and Jiangsu in car demand, and its third-ranking is under threat from Zhejiang and Hebei, which was also occupied by Japan over 70 years ago.

A man talks on his mobile phone while looking at a damaged Japanese car after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. Protests erupted across China a year ago after Japan nationalized some of the disputed islets - known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan - by buying them from a private owner. As passions ran high, thousands of Japanese brand cars were vandalized, and dealerships were attacked by mobs in Qingdao, a major city in Shandong, among other cities.

Anti-Japanese protesters hold a poster with Chinese national flag and characters, which reads "Down with Japanese Militarism, Japanese Get Out of Diaoyu Islands," while they drive a car past an entrance of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, China. In a widely-reported incident in mid-September last year, a 51-year-old Chinese man with his family drove his Toyota Corolla past an anti-Japanese demonstration in Xian in Shaanxi province. The car was surrounded by protesters and the man was so badly beaten he was partially paralyzed, and his car destroyed.

A boy looks at an overturned Japanese car after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. Sales of Japanese-branded cars plunged by more than half in September and October from year-earlier levels, and remained weak well into the first half of this year.

Chinese police officers look at overturned Japanese cars after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. Japanese sales are picking up in parts of China, especially in the south and southeast, but sales executives say recovery is frustratingly slow in Jiangsu, Anhui and Shaanxi. A Nissan sales executive based in Guangzhou said the attack on the driver in Xian had been especially damaging as it scared Chinese buyers away from Japanese cars.

People look at overturned Japanese cars after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. "Recovery in Shaanxi is the slowest for us," the executive said, asking not to be named as business is still sensitive to the issue. "We also have to deal with negative campaigns by dealers representing Western brands," he said, referring to some local dealers who tell customers it's unpatriotic or unsafe to own a Japanese car in China.

Chinese look at overturned Japanese cars after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. At Toyota, some executives question whether it's wise to pour resources into competing in these hostile markets.

GChinese look at overturned Japanese cars after an anti-Japan protest in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong Province. Takanori Yokoi, a Beijing-based spokesman, said Toyota was focusing on the tougher, faster-growth, provinces, rather than avoiding them. He noted the opening of a Toyota China branch this year in Nanjing, Jiangsu's capital - and the site of a massacre under Japanese occupation in late-1937 - and has expanded there, also opening a wholly-owned technical center in Changshu.