The comment followed tit-for-tat demonstrations in China and Japan on Saturday over the row that broke out last month when Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat captain near the islands in the East China Sea.

"China has expressed its deep concern to Japan over this," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the ministry website.

"We urge the Japanese side to ... take effective measures to ensure the safety of China's embassy, consulates, institutions and personnel in Japan."

Japanese nationalist groups rallied in central Tokyo against China's "invasion" of the islands and delivered a protest note to the Chinese embassy, while thousands demonstrated against Japan in three Chinese cities.

The protests came despite moves by the two Asian giants to patch up the row.

In Tokyo, Japanese flags fluttered in a park as more than 1,000 people gathered for the second major rally since the maritime incident.

Banners carried such messages as "Japan is in danger!" and "Don't forgive invader China".

As demonstrators left the park and started a march, two young men, believed to be Chinese, sat in the street to stop the rally.

One of their banners read: "Stop fuelling harassment towards Chinese residents in Japan".

The two scuffled with Japanese nationalists and were dragged away by police officers. They were immediately released, according to police.

At the start of the rally, Asako Ogura, a lawyer who belongs to the conservative Sunrise Party, drew large cheers as she took up a microphone to claim China had been ungrateful to Japan.

"We Japanese have long extended official development assistance by using taxpayers' money, and the Chinese economy has grown to surpass the Japanese.

"But China used its economic power to build up its military and now demands we hand over Senkaku and Okinawa on the back of the military power," she said.

"Our fathers and mothers boldly fought Western powers 60 years ago. Now let's fight the Chinese communists and their puppet government led by the Democratic Party of Japan!"

The rally continued to the Chinese embassy, where demonstrators delivered a protest statement, organisers said. They estimated the crowd at more than 3,200 people, and said Internet broadcasts of the event drew 10,000 viewers.

At the centre of the dispute -- the most bitter row in years between Asia's two biggest economies -- is a chain of uninhabited islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

The row was sparked by Japan's arrest on September 8 of the Chinese trawler captain whose vessel had collided with two Japanese coastguard ships near the islands.

In China, thousands of protesters marched in at least three cities on Saturday to vent their anger at Japan, state media and witnesses said.

The demonstrators in Xian, Chengdu, and Zhengzhou shouted slogans asserting Chinese sovereignty over the islands and calling for boycotts of Japanese goods, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Some protesters had learned about the planned demonstrations on the Internet, it said, but added that the protests were peaceful and watched closely by police.

"About 10,000 youths marched down the street outside our shop," a woman in Zhengzhou, capital of the central province of Henan, told AFP by phone.

"The were shouting 'Defend the Diaoyu islands' and "Boycott Japanese goods,'" said the woman, who declined to give her name.

She said she saw no signs of any violence.

Xinhua said at least 2,000 people marched in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province in the southwest, unfurling banners and shouting similar slogans.

In Xian, capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, thousands of college students staged a similar march, it said. Japan is still resented in China for its brutal World War II invasion and occupation of parts of China.

The Chinese captain was released last month and the two close trading partners have since moved to thaw relations, with China releasing the last of four Japanese men held for allegedly filming a military site.

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