China Pressure on Japan is Familiar    11/26 06:05

   

   BEIJING (AP) -- Just days after China issued an advisory against traveling 
to Japan, the cancellations started.

   About 3,000 Chinese visit Rie Takeda's tearoom in an alley in Tokyo's 
historic Asakusa district every year. Some 200 have already canceled bookings 
for her tea ceremony class, as far ahead as January.

   "I just hope the Chinese tourists return by Chinese New Year," she said, 
referring to the major holiday period in February. Past experience suggests it 
may take longer than that.

   China's government is turning to a well-used playbook to express its 
displeasure with Japan for refusing to retract a statement by its new prime 
minister on the hot-button issue of Taiwan.

   As with its tariffs on Australian wines in 2020, and restrictions on 
Philippine banana imports in 2012, Beijing is using its economic clout to 
pressure Tokyo while also hurling a torrent of invective at its government. The 
only question is how far China will go and how long the measures will last.

   "China's countermeasures are all kept secret and will be rolled out one by 
one," said Liu Jiangyong, an international relations professor at Tsinghua 
University in Beijing. "Everything is possible, because this involves the core 
of the nation's core interests."

   Disputes can drag on for more than a year

   China was angered by a statement of Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 
earlier this month that its military could get involved if China were to take 
action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing says must come 
under its rule.

   Japan is trying to keep the feud from escalating but has shown no sign of 
backing down. That dovetails with how some other governments have reacted to 
China's pressure: Stick to their positions and endure the pain, allowing the 
disputes to fester for a year or more.

   "The diplomatic challenge for both sides is that they have their own 
domestic audiences and so they don't want to be perceived as backing down," 
said Sheila A. Smith, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and 
author of "Intimate Rivals," a book on Japan-China relations.

   With several countries, the disputes persisted until a political change 
brought in a new leader unencumbered by the baggage of past statements.

   Australia's trade with China has gradually returned to normal since Prime 
Minister Anthony Albanese's election in 2022 -- the last step was the reopening 
of the lobster market. Canada is the latest country to start repairing 
relations under new Prime Minister Mark Carney.

   The travel advisory starts to bite

   It's not the first time Japan has faced China's economic wrath. In 2012, 
protesters attacked Japanese businesses in China and boycotted their goods 
after a dispute erupted over a group of uninhabited islands that both countries 
claim. Group tours to Japan were canceled.

   Based on what happened then, when Chinese visitors fell by one-fourth, 
Nomura Research Institute economist Takahide Kiuchi has estimated the current 
travel advisory could cost Japan 1.8 trillion yen ($11.5 billion), knocking 0.3 
percentage points off its already low annual economic growth.

   Many group tours have been canceled again, hitting businesses that rely on 
them. Gamagori Hotel in central Japan's Aichi prefecture said it had lost more 
than 2,000 guests. Nichu Syomu, a Japan-based tour company focusing on Chinese 
tourists, said 300 bookings have been canceled, describing the loss as 
comparable to 2012.

   China had been on track this year to displace South Korea and return to its 
pre-pandemic position as the top source of tourists to Japan. More than 8 
million Chinese visited in the first 10 months of this year, or 23% of the 
total, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

   "It's a shame," Nichu Syomu tour operator Nana Enomoto said, noting Chinese 
tourism was just recovering.

   Some Chinese tourists cancel. Others don't

   Kyren Zhu, who had never been to Japan, agonized over the decision. Her 
parents warned her against going. In the end, the accountant canceled a trip 
with a friend to see the fall foliage. Her friend went ahead and told her 
nothing unusual had happened.

   "If I'd known, I probably would have just gone," she said. "But it's hard to 
say. The situation is really beyond our control."

   Beijing resident Livia Du, who opened a ski lodge last year in northern 
Japan, received two cancellations -- but they were quickly filled by other 
Chinese.

   One customer told her that since China had taken a clear stance, he had to 
align with it. Another works at a government-owned company and said that staff 
had been instructed not to visit Japan in the near term.

   Guests appear to be in wait-and-see mode, said Du, who quit her job and 
invested more than 2 million yuan ($280,000) with her husband to build the 
lodge in Hokkaido. She was worried the situation could get worse.

   China warns it may take further steps

   The pressure appeared to extend into other sectors last week. The Chinese 
release of two Japanese movies was suddenly postponed -- the comedy "Cells at 
Work!" and the animated feature "Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Super Hot! The 
Spicy Kasukabe Dancers."

   A comedy festival in Shanghai canceled shows by a Japanese entertainment 
company, while a book publishing editor said her boss had told her to suspend a 
project to import a Japanese comic book.

   The prospects for seafood exports to China remained unclear, even after 
Tokyo denied news reports that Beijing had said it was reversing its decision 
to end a 2-year-old ban on Japanese seafood.

   Japan has failed to provide the technical documentation needed to resume the 
exports, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said when asked about 
the reports.

   China could also target its export of rare earths, which are vital to car 
production and other industries. Beijing found that the minerals were an 
American weak point when it restricted their export earlier this year.

   "Japan should first retract its erroneous remarks and take concrete actions 
to maintain the political foundation of China-Japan relations," Mao said last 
week. "Otherwise, China will have to take further measures."