China has warned its citizens against traveling to Japan as it escalates a backlash over comments by the country’s prime minister about the island of Taiwan.
The dictum is Beijing’s most substantive retaliation yet to Sanae Takaichi’s remarks. Even as it may be more symbolic than anything, the move suggests Beijing is willing to wield its economic heft to press geopolitical points, a well-worn playbook.
Recent “blatantly provocative remarks on Taiwan” have “further damaged the atmosphere for people-to-people exchanges… creating additional risks to the safety and security of Chinese citizens in Japan,” a statement published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The ministry and its missions “remind Chinese citizens to refrain from visiting Japan for the time being,” it said. Following the announcement, a number of Chinese airlines including Air China, China Eastern and China Southern on Saturday published notices on their websites offering customers refunds or free changes on certain tickets to Japan, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The move by Beijing is its latest show of outrage in a roughly week-long row after Takaichi, in response to a question in Japan’s parliament, said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would count as “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” and thus could trigger a military response from Tokyo.
Beijing views the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to take control of the island, by force if necessary. For Beijing, Taiwan’s sovereignty is the most sensitive issue in its relations with other nations – a “red line” not to be crossed.
China’s Ministry of Defense on Friday separately warned that Japan would “suffer a crushing defeat” if it dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait. Nearly 7.5 million travelers from China visited Japan between January and September this year, by far the highest count of any country or region, according to official data cited by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
The travel advisory follows official protest from both sides related to the incident – with each country summoning the other’s ambassador – and a surge of vitriolic backlash against Takaichi from within China, where nationalist, anti-Japanese sentiment has been on the rise in recent years.
The falling-out comes less than two weeks after Takaichi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for the first time on the sidelines of an international summit and agreed to pursue constructive, stable ties.
Source: Here