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Shares in Japanese tourism and retail firms fell sharply on Monday after China warned its citizens not to travel to Japan amid an escalating row over comments made by prime minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan.
In morning trade shares in cosmetics form Shiseido fell 9%, department store group Takashimaya by more than 5% and Fast Retailing – the owner of Uniqlo – by more than 4%.
China is the biggest source of tourists to Japan.
Takaichi told Japan’s parliament on 7 November that the use of force against the self-ruled island claimed by China could warrant a military response from Tokyo.
If a Taiwan emergency entails “battleships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening the survival [of Japan], any way you slice it,” Takaichi told parliament.
Japan’s self-imposed rules say that it can only act militarily under certain conditions, including an existential threat, and the government has since said its position on Taiwan – just 100km from the nearest Japanese island – is unchanged.
Before taking power last month, Takaichi, an acolyte of ex-premier Shinzo Abe, was a vocal critic of China and its military buildup in the Asia-Pacific.
Her comments came just days after she met Chinese leader Xi Jinping for an apparently cordial first meeting on the sidelines of an Apec summit in South Korea.
Takaichi, who has visited Taiwan in the past and called for closer cooperation, also met separately with Taipei’s representative at the summit.
China and Japan last week summoned each other’s ambassadors, with Beijing then advising its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan.
On Sunday the Chinese coastguard said its ships made a “rights enforcement patrol” through the waters of the Senkaku islands, which are administered by Japan but also claimed by China as the Diaoyu islands.
Beijing insists Taiwan, which Japan occupied for decades until 1945, is part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to seize control.
China and Japan are key trading partners, but historical mistrust and friction over territorial rivalries and military spending often test those ties.
Japanese media reports said that the top official in the foreign ministry for Asia-Pacific affairs headed to China on Monday.
Masaaki Kanai, director general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau at the ministry, was due to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Liu Jinsong, the reports said.
Kanai was expected to reiterate Japan’s position that Takaichi’s remarks do not change Japan’s traditional position.
With Agence France-Presse
