An “unsatisfactory” meeting, he declared China. Tokyo had sent its Asian affairs officer, Masaaki Tanai, to Beijing on Monday to settle the latest bilateral mess, and ended up regretting that China released the images of his departure. His interlocutor, Liu Jinsong, listens disdainfully with his hands in his pockets, not even paying attention to the Japanese’s somewhat humiliating hint of a bow. He chose for the date a suit that was not typical for diplomatic customs: gray, with five buttons and no collar. In the national memory it is associated with the 1919 student revolt against Japanese imperialism.
There was no doubt that Sino-Japanese coexistence would be arid with Sanae Takaichi, but the new prime minister’s haste to torpedo her has been surprising. He has barely been in office for a month and only two weeks ago he had committed to Xi JinpingChinese president, to work for cordial relations. And then, without further ado, he entered the Taiwanese puddle. He clarified that a attack Chinese to the island would be a “situation of threat to national survival“. That is the constitutional trap that empowers Japanese military intervention. And since then, the outburst. China has punished it from all fronts and threatened with cut off economic, diplomatic and military channels.
A Japan The party is not going to be cheap. China is its main business partnerwith exchanges of 308 billion dollars last year, and an indispensable market for service industries such as education, entertainment and tourism. And Beijing has already decreed the economic coercion without measure. He advised against traveling to Japan and in just three days they were more than half a million tickets canceled. Almost one in three tourists in Japan are Chinese and they are also the ones who spend the most. Many of the connections have been canceled and the turismowhich represents 7% of the national GDP, will suffer the absence of its neighbors. The Chinese announcement generated immediate falls in the stock market of airlines, shopping centers and even cosmetics manufacturers.
Tourism, fishing, entertainment
China has also suspended imports of fish y seafood Japanese. The measure is another slap in the face to the suffering Japanese sector: just a few months ago China had lifted the ban motivated by the discharge of water from Fukushima to the ocean. Beijing tried to justify the new suspension due to the lack of the documents promised by Tokyo and ended up admitting that its fish “lacked a market” in China due to the political climate. The offensive extends to culture. Chinese distributors have delayed the release of two Japanese films and withdrawn another that had seen its box office collapse during the stormy days. a dozen concerts by Japanese artists have been canceled in major Chinese cities, sometimes with police visits and short notice.
Tourism, fishing, entertainment… and in cyclical crises it is not strange that sales of automobiles also fall. automobiles o cameras photographs. The disaster explains why Tokyo sent that emissary on Monday. He was still fortunate to be received. In recent days, Beijing has canceled trilateral summits (along with South Korea) and spurned the Japanese offer for its prime minister to meet with her Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, at the G-20 summit in South Africa.
The thickest red line
Beijing has already clarified that it does not want explanations or qualifications for Takaichi’s statements about Taiwan. Demand that he retract and apologize. It is debatable whether or not the Chinese reaction is disproportionate; It is not debatable that it was expected. Taiwan, as Xi reminded Takaichi at the APEC summit, is the thicker red line of Chinese international politics. His immediate betrayal of a personal commitment is not a matter the Chinese will soon forget.
Takaichi was elected in the Liberal Democratic Party primaries for her hard line, in contrast to her two lukewarm predecessors. His attack on China has given him 80% popular support, unusual in his country, but in return it has generated a phenomenal conflict that is difficult to resolve. Those apologies that Beijing demands would ruin his reputation and probably his political career after a short month in office. And it does not seem that Japan will be able to resist for long the attacks of a country that has already brought the United States to its knees in its trade war. Japan also needs, without going any further, the rare earth Chinese to make their industry work.
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