JJapan

Japan wanted fewer tourists. Now China’s boycott is doing the job for them

  • November 25, 2025

Japan wanted fewer tourists. Now China’s boycott is doing the job for them

by TheTelegraph

29 comments

  1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

    Had you been in [Tokyo](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/japan/tokyo/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/japan/tokyo/) last week, you wouldn’t have noticed any obvious fretting over a diplomatic spat. The ebb and flow of people across the zebra stripes of the famous Shibuya Crossing – rumoured to be the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world – was as tidal as ever.

    Restaurants were filled with diners along the Ginza Corridor – and autumn was still on fiery form in the grounds around the Imperial Palace.

    But it was there all the same: a widening war of words with neighbouring China that earned mention in broadsheet headlines, on social media feeds and in TV news bulletins.

    The flashpoint for this stand-off is [Taiwan](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/19/taiwan-buys-500m-air-defence-system-china-invasion-threat/) – the self-governing island which China considers to be its own territory. But specifically, the row has been triggered by a statement made by the [Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/18/japans-iron-lady-picks-fight-with-china-sanae-takaichi/), a hawkish politician whose general outlook might easily be summarised as “Japan First”.

    On November 7, she suggested that any [Chinese attack on Taiwan](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/24/china-tells-japan-its-ready-for-war-fiery-propaganda-video/) should be viewed as a “situation threatening Japan’s survival”; a tacit suggestion that this scenario would precipitate an intervention by Japanese troops.

    The response from Beijing – forever prickly about its own sphere of influence – has been furious. Amid repeated demands (so far ignored) for Takaichi to retract her comments, China has urged its students to think carefully about whether they should study in Japan. On November 17, Chinese distributors suspended screenings of two new Japanese films.

    Most seismic, however, has been the instruction to Chinese tourists. On November 14, [Beijing urged its travelling public not to visit Japan](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/15/china-urges-citizens-not-to-visit-japan-over-taiwan-threats/). Within 24 hours, three Chinese airlines had begun offering refunds on bookings to Japanese cities. A week later, the number of Chinese carriers taking the same stance had reached double figures.

    What is fast becoming a crisis has the potential to be extremely expensive. Even as the planet’s fourth-largest economy, Japan will feel the financial pain that this falling-out is now costing tour operators, hotels and other travel-related businesses.

    **Read more:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/japan/chinese-tourists-boycott-japan-travel/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/japan/chinese-tourists-boycott-japan-travel/)

  2. As an American… why would a country want less tourism? Isn’t tourism good for businesses?

    EDIT:

    I live in the Midwest, not exactly a tourist Hotspot, so I’m not used to these kinds of concerns

  4. Talk to any Japanese in Japan, they are extremely happy about this. And it’s not like all Chinese just stopped going, just a lot have decided not to go because of China advising not to. There are still a ton going

  5. People living there complaining is a different story, but I love when tourists complain about other tourists like they are somehow special and exempt 😂

  6. My only angry moment in Japan this 2 years was, one chinese old guy pointed his finger on my food and start screaming his tour guide then touched his finger on my plate. I was shocked.

  7. It’s a bit of a double edge sword.

    Over-tourism definitely is an issue but this kind of abrupt correction will have negative consequences in the medium term.

    It’s really not that vastly different from say Trump’s tariffs fundamentally driving major importers of American goods into the arms of other countries. Once those new relationships are cemented it will be tough to get them to buy American again.

    If the solution for over-tourism was a little more gradual through initiatives say like:

    – Increase in price of visa fees from Chinese tourists
    – Reduction in visas issued to Chinese tourists

    The correction pace would be a little more ideal. You’d have less Chinese tourists roaming the streets of Japan while also not as abruptly reducing this greatly profitable income stream for everyone who benefits from tourism in Japan.

    But totally understand for the average Japanese why this is positive news since they don’t benefit from tourism but they feel the brunt of the pain from the influx of tourists (particularly Chinese ones).

  9. This. We went to Japan two years ago and didn’t realize it was China’s “Golden week” where they all have off of work/travel, apparently mostly to Japan. It was packed with Chinese tourists. They don’t have lines in China so they were chaoticly flooding tourist spots, skipping people, etc. Very rude behaviors that made the experience more overwhelming and they don’t have the same polite customs or obey japanese social niceties. My partner lived in China for 3.5 years and can attest to these behaviors. It makes sense that the Japanese are happy about the boycott. 

  10. I was on the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Nagoya last march and there was a group from Spain (I believe) playing music loudly from their Bluetooth speaker and being generally rude. I will never understand doing this in my own country let alone going abroad and being an asshole  

  13. If tourism was bad Abe wouldn’t have pushed for 60 million by 2030. The problem with tourism is that the positives are not as visible but the negatives are very visible. It’s the government’s job to ensure that the economic benefits are felt more evently.

  14. I really do hope the Japanese want and like this. I also hope is sticks longer term. I‘ve avoided traveling to Osaka and Kyoto because I don’t want to contribute to the over tourism but my wife hasn’t been to Kyoto since she was a kid and I’ve never been to either city. We also haven’t been back in the spring, to see the cherry blossoms, since we got married in 1995.

    Maybe this also gives the Japanese a breather so they can make efforts to spread the tourists across the country. IMO that could help prevent more over tourism in the future when/if the Chinese end their ban. Japan has a ridiculously large number of places worth visiting that are not anywhere near Kyoto, Osaka, or Tokyo.

  17. Any of yall taking the opportunity to dump on Chinese tourists haven’t been in Japan for a while or just hate Chinese people, bc Chinese tourists do not stick out more than any other tourists in their behaviour

  18. Those locals who can hold onto their jobs in an economic downturn won’t be affected but fuck the rest huh

  20. i think there is a difference locals opposing more tourists and business/government wanting more tourists.

    these two are not antithetical 

  21. Japan being hit with less tourism would be bad for their economy for sure. The society that is overworked and doesn’t have kids and has long lifespans is messing with one of their reliable streams of money and treating it like a burden which is wild do to their current position. Their inability to “grow up” and join the rest of the world in terms of mixing and adapting to current socioeconomic practices will hurt them long term. The reasoning of purity (nationalism) through simply being Japanese doesn’t change the fact that they are an island and are dependent on the rest of the world just as every other country is dependent on eachother. It’s just sort of perplexing to me as they’ve done a great job at changing their image in the past 60 years to become a place of tourism.

  23. Wow people are openly racist all throughout this thread towards Chinese. Why is this a normalized thing?

  25. Win-win.

    They had to out a massive panel to block the view of Mount Fuji because Chinese tourist buses would stop in the middle of the road and disembark passengers. Imagine that. Stop a highway bus in the middle of the road for a photo op. And the only way to make the Chinese understand that this was unacceptable was to make a wall to block the view.

    Chinese tourism is something else…

  28. Give their citizens a break from the implications in their quality of life from over tourism!! Japan is a wonderful place geographically and culturally as compared to big C. They can easily pick up the tourism from them any other times

  29. More on this subject from other reputable sources:

    —
    – Time (B): [How the China-Japan Rift Could Cost Both Countries](https://time.com/7336391/china-japan-taiwan-dispute-takaichi-xi-economic-costs-diplomatic-relations/)
    – CNBC (B): [‘Takaichi cannot retract her statement and Beijing knows that’: Why China-Japan spat unlikely to be resolved soon](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/25/trump-xi-taikaichi-call-us-china-japan-beijing-tokyo-spat-taiwan-taipei-pla-jsdf-senkaku-diaoyu.html)
    – Japan Today (B): [Takaichi speaks with Trump about China](https://japantoday.com/category/politics/Takaichi-speaks-with-Trump-about-China)
    – N-tv (C+): [Phone call with Donald Trump: Xi Jinping wants to be “more involved” in peace deal in Ukraine](https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Xi-Jinping-will-bei-Friedensdeal-in-der-Ukraine-staerker-involviert-sein-id30063319.html)

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