SUSPECTS involved in a scandal concerning 300 Japanese tourists coming to China "to have sex with Chinese women" in Zhuhai, of Guangdong Province, have been detained for questioning.

　　According to sources with the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, quoted in the Nanfang Daily, police were now conducting a full investigationsintosthe affair.

　　On September 16 and 17, more than 300 Japanese male tourists were said by local residents to have brought scores of prostitutes to the Zhuhai International Conference Centre Hotel, a local five-star hotel, said a police official.

　　A witness named Zhao Guangquan, a businessman, told the Henan-based Zhengzhou Evening News, that he had been angered when he saw many Japanese misbehaving with the prostitutes, even in the lobby and lifts of the hotel. "Some were even putting their hands inside the women' clothes," he said.

　　The Japanese are alleged to have held a three-day orgy at the luxury hotel under the guise of a company celebration. The five-star hotel has been closed pending investigations, a spokeswoman for the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau told reporters.

　　The all-male Japanese tourist group, the oldest member of which was 37, also included high school students of about 16 years of age, according to the official.

　　To accommodate the Japanese visitors, the hotel had even asked some guests to move to other rooms, a woman surnamed Gao complained to the Hunan-based Xiaoxiang Morning Post.

　　The woman, from Jinan of Shandong Province, and some of her colleagues had booked six rooms on the 13th floor on September 15. But the hotel asked them to move to the 17th floor the next day because "some Japanese wanted their rooms".

　　A hotel manager, who only gave his family name as Chen, told reporters the Japanese tourists had wanted to raise their national flag in the lobby of the hotel but the hotel refused their request.

　　After the news was carried in local media, people became furious not only about the disgusting incident but also about the sensitive timing - two days before the 72nd anniversary of the start of the Japanese army's occupation of Northeast China in 1931.

　　A message on the website, www.chinadaily.com.cn said: "I can only ask my countrymen: Have we forgotten the Nanjing Massacre?"

　　"It's a trivial matter for Chinese prostitutes to sell sex, but the key is to look at the intentions of those Japanese," said one message on the website. "They came on purpose for September 18."

　　The businessman Zhao said he had asked some Japanese about the purpose of their visit to China with the help of an interpreter on the early morning of September 17. After much insistence, the interpreter told him unwillingly that their answer was: "... to have sex with Chinese women".

　　Zhao said he picked up a namecard of a "Woman Boss" named Zhou Wu. Zhou told him the price for a prostitute for the Japanese was 1,200 to 1,800 yuan (US-218) per night. But later she denied making such a statement.

　　Without giving a specific figure for the number of suspects and prostitutes who have been detained, the official with the police bureau, who did not want to be named, said a full investigation was being conductedsintosthe case.

　　Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in Beijing on September 28 that the incident was "a disgusting affair" and that the Chinese authorities were investigating the case and would punish the guilty in accordance with the law. (Star News)