China is ramping up retaliation against Japan in a diplomatic row that is already impacting Tokyo’s fragile economy.
Beijing said Wednesday it was halting Japanese seafood imports and movie releases, after advising citizens against traveling to Japan. Relations between the two countries soured after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan; Beijing is now punishing Tokyo with aggressive rhetoric and economic pain.
A blow to tourism is an “unwelcome drag” on Japan, a Moody’s analyst said, after the country reported its first quarterly GDP contraction in more than a year. But Japan’s public is “numb to Chinese rhetoric,” Bloomberg’s Japan-based columnist wrote, and Beijing’s conduct could help Takaichi advance her agenda by galvanizing public support.