China warns citizens to avoid traveling to Japan amid Taiwan row

Foster Wong and Jacob Gu, Bloomberg News on Nov 14, 2025

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China urged its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan in the near term, escalating a conflict over comments from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggesting potential intervention in the event of a military conflict over Taiwan.

The measure, the first significant retaliation taken by Beijing in the row, was sparked by Takaichi’s remarks last week that military force used in any Taiwan conflict could be considered a “survival-threatening situation” — a classification that would provide a legal justification for Japan to intervene.

“The Japanese leader has recently made brazenly provocative remarks concerning Taiwan, seriously undermining the atmosphere for China-Japan exchanges and posing major risks to the personal safety and lives of Chinese citizens in Japan,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement issued late Friday.

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed to reclaim the self-ruled island of 23 million people some day — by force, if necessary. Beijing accused Takaichi of meddling in its internal affairs and demanded a retraction, but the prime minister on Monday defended her stance.

“Beijing is playing the old card of leveraging Chinese tourists’ spending to increase the cost of Takaichi’s recent comments on Taiwan and her attitude toward the island in the hope that higher internal pressure could make her more prudent on sensitive topics to China,” said Neo Wang, lead China macro analyst at Evercore ISI in New York.

Japan Tourism Statistics data show that almost 7.5 million visitors from mainland China visited the country for the first nine months of the year, accounting for nearly a quarter of all foreign tourists.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong summoned Japan’s ambassador to Beijing on Thursday and warned that Takaichi should disavow her comments or “otherwise all consequences must be borne by Japan.” A commentary published by the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party newspaper, said the prime minister’s remarks were “extremely sinister” and marked Tokyo’s “first threat of force” against Beijing in 80 years.

Ties between Beijing and Tokyo have been rocky for decades over historical issues, including Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s, as well as long-running spats over disputed islands. Tensions had eased somewhat in recent months, however, after China lifted a ban on imports of seafood from most parts of Japan.

Japan does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but has spoken out against any attempts to change the status quo unilaterally, and has said cross-strait ties must be resolved peacefully.

Vice Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi summoned China’s Ambassador to Japan, Wu Jianghao, on Friday, according to the ministry. Funakoshi lodged a “strong protest” over an X post by China’s Consul General in Osaka, Xue Jian.

Xue wrote in the since-deleted post that “the filthy head charges in on its own will be cut off without a moment’s hesitation,” according to Sankei.

Funakoshi said the comments were highly inappropriate, according to the ministry.

(Li Liu and Erica Yokoyama contributed to this report.)