{"id":293140,"date":"2025-11-18T18:35:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293140\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:35:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:35:18","slug":"japan-warns-citizens-in-china-to-be-careful-as-diplomatic-spat-continues-over-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293140\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan warns citizens in China to be careful as diplomatic spat continues over Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan has warned its citizens in China to be careful of their surroundings and to avoid big crowds, as a diplomatic row spirals over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan.<\/p>\n

The escalating spat has already seen Beijing advise Chinese citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and hit Tokyo stocks.<\/p>\n

The screenings of at least two Japanese movies will also be postponed in China, state media reported.<\/p>\n

“Pay attention to your surroundings and avoid as much as possible squares where large crowds gather, or places that are likely to be identified as being used by many Japanese people,” the Japanese embassy in China said in a statement on its website dated Monday, local time.<\/p>\n

Beijing on Tuesday, local time, vowed to “protect the safety” of foreigners in China, but said it had again lodged a “strong protest” with Tokyo over Ms Takaichi’s comments.<\/p>\n

Minoru Kihara, Japan’s top government spokesman, said the embassy’s advice was issued “based on a comprehensive assessment of the political situation, including the security situation in the relevant country or region, as well as the social conditions”.<\/p>\n

How one comment sparked threats against Japan’s PM<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanae Takaichi has been in the top job for less than a month, but her comments detailing what Japan could do if China invaded Taiwan has sparked a diplomatic war.<\/p>\n

The diplomatic feud between China and Japan was ignited by Ms Takaichi’s suggestion that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan.<\/p>\n

China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to take the democratic island, reacted furiously to Ms Takaichi’s comments.<\/p>\n

It called for her to retract the remarks and summoned the Japanese ambassador.<\/p>\n

In a post on X on November 8, the Chinese consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, threatened to “cut off that dirty neck”, apparently referring to Japan’s prime minister, who took office in October.<\/p>\n

Tokyo said it had summoned the Chinese ambassador over the now-deleted social media post.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic talks try to ease tensions<\/p>\n

Seeking to defuse the row, Masaaki Kanai, the top official in the foreign ministry for Asia-Pacific affairs, held talks on Tuesday in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jinsong.<\/p>\n

“During the consultations, China once again lodged a strong protest with Japan” over “Takaichi’s erroneous remarks”, said Beijing’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.<\/p>\n

“Takaichi’s fallacies seriously violate international law and the basic norms governing international relations”, Ms Mao said, adding her comments “fundamentally damage the political foundation of China-Japan relations”.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Masaaki Kanai and Liu Jinsong met in Beijing on Tuesday. (Kyodo via Reuters)<\/p>\n

The Japanese embassy warning also advised citizens to “be careful about your words and attitudes when interacting with local people”.<\/p>\n

It came as China Film News, which is supervised by the state-backed China Film Administration, said the release of imported Japanese movies “Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers” and “Cells at Work!” would be postponed.<\/p>\n

The two movies were originally expected to be released on December 6 and November 22 respectively, according to review site Douban.<\/p>\n

“Japan’s provocative comments will inevitably affect Chinese audiences’ perception of Japanese movies,” China Film News said in an article posted on WeChat Monday.<\/p>\n

500,000 flight tickets cancelled<\/p>\n

Tokyo stocks fell more than three per cent Tuesday as the diplomatic spat weighed on sentiment.<\/p>\n

Japanese tourism and retail shares dived on Monday after China warned its citizens to avoid Japan, a tourist hotspot.<\/p>\n

Japan moves to cool tensions with China amid diplomatic spat over Taiwan <\/a><\/p>\n

Tokyo has sent a senior foreign ministry official to Beijing to try and ease tensions, that have seen threats made against Japan’s prime minister.<\/p>\n

In his meeting with his counterpart in Beijing, the Japanese foreign ministry’s Kanai rejected China’s justification for its travel warning, saying “public order within Japan has in no way deteriorated”, according to a ministry statement.<\/p>\n

He “strongly urged (China) to take appropriate measures,” the statement added.<\/p>\n

Li Hanming, an aviation analyst, told AFP that around 500,000 tickets from China to Japan had been cancelled since November 15.<\/p>\n

Asia’s two top economies are closely entwined, with China the biggest source of tourists \u2014 almost 7.5 million visitors in the first nine months of 2025 \u2014 coming to Japan.<\/p>\n

Before taking power last month, Ms Takaichi was a vocal critic of China and its military build-up in the Asia-Pacific.<\/p>\n

If a Taiwan emergency entails “battleships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening the survival (of Japan)”, she told parliament earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Under Japan’s self-imposed rules, an existential threat is one of the few cases where it can act militarily.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan has warned its citizens in China to be careful of their surroundings and to avoid big crowds,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,3686,99,512,168402,168403,164,941,168399,168401,167142,130747,11069,168400,11804],"class_list":["post-293140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beijing","tag-business","tag-china","tag-china-film-news","tag-china-japan-flights","tag-economy","tag-japan","tag-japan-china-news","tag-masaaki-kanai","tag-minoru-kihara","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwan-comments","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}