Tensions in Asia 'may hit growth'

MEDIA mogul Rupert Murdoch says the growing tensions between Japan and China could cast a cloud over the outlook for global growth.

Murdoch, who has for years been a enthusiastic backer of China's economic emergence, said deteriorating ties between Tokyo and Beijing were 'one possible cloud on the horizon'.

'I think there are real dangers of something happening there,' he added. Tensions between Asia's two largest economies have ratcheted higher over the past three weeks, with a series of large - sometimes violent - protests in Chinese cities targeting Japanese businesses and diplomatic premises.

Mainland citizens are angered that school textbooks in Japan allegedly gloss over Japan's wartime past. Japan invaded China in the 1930s, brutally occupying parts of the country for years.

{1}'Every mainland Chinese is educated to hate Japan and that is not easy to control,' Murdoch said at a US business conference.

Demonstrations in China are not normally permitted by the Communist authorities. Murdoch said that having allowed anti-Japanese protests to gather momentum, it could be tough for the government to rein them in.

'If they can't get their genie back in the bottle, it's going to be very difficult,' he said. Japan and China have extensive economic, trade and investment links.

Chinese low-end products have made inroads into Japan in the past 10 years, while China has become a key market for Japanese cars and electronics. As relations have soured Japanese equities in particular have taken a hit. < Sky >