Chinese tourists shun Japan over lunar new year holiday as rift deepens

Chinese tourists are continuing to shun Japan in large numbers, with the country falling out of the top 10 destinations for those celebrating the lunar new year with a trip abroad.Japan has had a dramatic drop in the number of Chinese visitors since the end of last year as a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing over the security of Taiwan continues.Chinese tourism to Japan, where a weak currency is helping fuel a tourism boom, almost halved in December compared with the same period in 2025, Japan’s transport ministry said.The trend looks set to continue, months after Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, suggested her country’s self-defence forces could be deployed if China attempted to invade Taiwan.China claims the self-governing democracy as part of its own territory and has vowed to unite it with the mainland, by force if necessary.Takaichi’s remarks led to an angry response in China, where officials urged tourists and students not to travel to Japan.South Korea is expected to become the most popular overseas destination for Chinese travellers during the 40-day travel frenzy, with an estimated 250,000 expected to visit, up 1.5 times from the previous year.Japan will welcome fewer people from China than other countries in the region, including Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Russia, according to media reports. Instead, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan during the lunar new year holidays is expected to fall by up to 60% from the previous year.The dispute over Taiwan has intensified since Takaichi told MPs in November that military involvement was an option if a crisis in the Taiwan Strait posed an “existential” threat to Japan.Her refusal to back down has invited more criticism from China, including its foreign minister, Wang Yi, who this week accused Takaichi of trying to revive Japan’s militarist past.Wang told the Munich Security Conference on Monday: “Japanese people should no longer allow themselves to be manipulated or deceived by those far-right forces, or by those who seek to revive militarism.“All peace-loving countries should send a clear warning to Japan: if it chooses to walk back on this path, it will only be heading toward self-destruction.”In response, Japan protested through diplomatic channels, while the foreign ministry in Tokyo condemned Wang’s claims as “factually incorrect and ungrounded”.“Japan’s efforts to strengthen its defence capabilities are in response to an increasingly severe security environment and are not directed against any specific third country,” the ministry said in a statement.It said there were “countries in the international community that have been rapidly increasing their military capabilities in a non-transparent manner”, but added that “Japan opposes such moves and distances itself from them”.Liu Xiaoming, China’s special representative on Korean peninsula affairs, upped the ante when he said Takaichi’s remarks were proof of Japan’s “unextinguished ambition to invade and colonise Taiwan once again, and the lingering ghost of revived militarism”.In a post on X that referenced Japan’s 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Liu added: “The lessons of history are not far away and must be heeded. If Japan refuses to repent and change its ways, it will inevitably repeat the same tragic mistakes.”Officials in Beijing have repeatedly warned travellers they face threats to their safety in Japan, although there have been no reports of incidents targeting tourists from China.On Sunday, the Chinese consulate general in Osaka again urged Chinese nationals to refrain from travelling to Japan after a fatal stabbing in the city. The incident, in which a teenager was stabbed to death and two others injured in a popular tourist area, did not involve Chinese nationals.Not all people have heeded the official travel advice. A Chinese man told the Kyodo news agency it was important to promote goodwill between ordinary people from both countries. Another, a woman from Shanghai, said she still planned to visit Japan with her parents. “The travel alert is aimed at promoting criticism of Japan,” she told Kyodo. “But my family has not been brainwashed.”With Reuters