Business & Economics
Beijing Warns Off Tourists and Patrols Senkaku After Japan PM’s Taiwan War Talk
Between 16–17 Nov 2025, China replied to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Nov 7 statement that Japan could fight over Taiwan by issuing a nationwide Japan-travel alert, sending Coast Guard ships to the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and signalling readiness for sanctions and even armed retaliation.
Focusing Facts
- China Coast Guard announced a rights-patrol inside Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial waters on 16 Nov 2025—the first such disclosure since Takaichi’s remarks.
- Starting 17 Nov 2025, Air China, China Southern, China Eastern and other Chinese airlines offered free cancellations or reroutes on Japan flights through 31 Dec 2025.
- Tokyo-listed tourism stocks tumbled on 17 Nov 2025; Shiseido –9%, Isetan Mitsukoshi –10%, and Japan Airlines –4.4%.
Context
Beijing has repeatedly weaponised tourist flows—2010 rare-earth export squeeze after a Senkaku boat collision and the 2017 ban on South-Korea group tours cost Seoul US$6.5 bn—so the new travel warning fits a decade-long pattern of coercive economic diplomacy even as China and Japan each remain among the other’s top three trade partners. The military posturing recalls the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, when control of Taiwan and nearby islands shifted from Qing China to Meiji Japan, and the 1937–45 Sino-Japanese War that still shapes nationalist narratives exploited by both governments and by partisan outlets (note NaturalNews’ hyperbolic “full-scale war” framing and World Socialist’s focus on Japanese ‘imperialism’). Long-run, the episode underscores an uncomfortable trend: deep economic interdependence is no longer insulating East Asia from hard-power rivalry, just as pre-1914 Anglo-German trade could not stop naval competition. Whether this spat settles quietly—like the 2012 Senkaku protests—or locks in a new cold war will influence defense spending trajectories, alliance structures and freedom of navigation in the Western Pacific for the next half-century, well beyond the 2049 centenary when Beijing aims for “national rejuvenation.”
Perspectives
Mainstream Western media
Mainstream Western media — Report that Beijing has escalated the spat by sending Coast Guard ships to disputed islands, issuing travel warnings and hinting at economic retaliation after Japan’s prime minister raised the possibility of defending Taiwan, framing China as endangering regional stability and Japan’s economy. Coverage tends to spotlight China’s coercive tactics while playing down Japan’s own hawkish policy shifts, reflecting Western governments’ strategic rivalry with Beijing and the outlets’ liberal-internationalist worldview.
Left-wing anti-imperialist media
Left-wing anti-imperialist media — Argues that Japan’s far-right leadership, in concert with U.S. imperialism, is deliberately provoking a war with China over Taiwan by abandoning constitutional pacifism and expanding military spending. This perspective foregrounds Western and Japanese militarism while portraying China largely as a reactive power, consistent with the outlet’s ideological focus on exposing capitalist aggression and may understate Beijing’s own nationalism.
Right-wing conspiratorial media
Right-wing conspiratorial media — Declares that China has issued an explicit military threat promising a crushing, full-scale war on Japan for any Taiwan intervention, casting Beijing as an expansionist menace enabled by globalist elites. Sensational language, apocalyptic framing and references to unrelated conspiracies cater to an anti-China, anti-globalist audience and often rely on selective or unverified information.