China has advised its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan, claiming a worsened environment for personal exchanges and a ‘significant risk to the personal safety and lives of Chinese citizens’.
That’s according to state media outlet China Daily, which indicates that the warning is directly tied to comments by Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan.
The publication notes that ‘Beijing is prepared for further countermeasures’, aside from those already set out.
Chinese carriers – including Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines – have announced cancellations of flights to Japan, with some 491,000 tickets already cancelled since Saturday, according to the SCMP.
The carriers have announced special measures for eligible passengers traveling before December 31st to change or refund their tickets free of charge.
According to statistics, Japan welcomed some 7.5 million Chinese tourists in the first nine months of this year, with the visitors accounting for roughly 25 percent of tourism numbers.
Macau and Hong Kong have issued similar travel advisories for citizens traveling to Japan, with Macau’s tourism authority stating ‘since the middle of this year, the tendency for attacks against Chinese citizens in Japan has been increasing’.
Beijing retains a strict ‘One China’ policy, which includes Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of its national territory.
While the move to restrict Chinese visitation to Japan won’t affect any casinos in the nation, as the first – MGM Osaka – is only set to open in 2027, it represents the strong control that China has over its citizens’ travel. This was also reflected in the recent talks between Thailand’s PM and China’s leader Xi Jinping, in which an assurance that casino legislation would not be pursued resulted in a guarantee that more Chinese tourists would visit the Southeast Asian nation.
