Thousands of Taiwanese hold anti-China rally

Tens of thousands of slogan-chanting Taiwanese took to the streets on Saturday to protest rival China's military threats against the island.
The demonstrators pledged to safeguard the island and called on China to dismantle the hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan.
"The great Taiwanese people oppose annexation and invasion. We protect democracy and care for Taiwan... and say no to China," President Chen Shui-bian told the rally organised by his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
"Taiwan is an independent sovereign state. It belongs to the 23 million people on the island and its future should be decided by the people here rather than by the 1.3 billion people in China," Chen added.
The DPP said the rally was intended to highlight the increasing threat from China, which has some 780 ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan.
The protestors, estimated at 150,000 by the organisers, shouted slogans such as "Loving Taiwan, opposing annexation!" and "Loving peace, opposing missiles!".
Police estimates of the turnout were not available.
"Taiwan is not part of China. I oppose China for bullying Taiwan and wish for peace for Taiwan," DPP supporter Yeh Chien-rong told AFP.
The rally came after China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao warned that Beijing was fully prepared "for all eventualities" in its efforts to rein in Taiwan's independence forces.
Beijing last year passed a law allowing it to use force against Taiwan if the island declared formal independence. Beijing regards the island as part of its territory although the two sides have been governed separately since they split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
Many of the marchers wore locally-made towels as headbands to protest massive imports of cheaper China-made towels which local manufacturers say threaten their survival.
Some also held red plastic model missiles to highlight China's military threat and ask Beijing to remove them.
Vice President Annette Lu and Premier Su Tseng-chang were among the DPP officials that attended the event as was Su Chin-chiang, head of the radical pro-independence party Taiwan Solidarity Union.