{"id":4205,"date":"2026-01-27T20:00:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=4205"},"modified":"2026-01-27T20:00:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:00:50","slug":"chinese-government-tells-citizens-to-not-travel-to-japan-during-chinese-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=4205","title":{"rendered":"Chinese government tells citizens to not travel to Japan during Chinese New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-725353\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/01\/cw-0.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Japan has too many criminals and earthquakes to be safe for Chinese people<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Japan, <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/2025\/12\/29\/starbucks-japan-ready-to-get-year-of-the-horse-started-with-adorable-drinkware-and-plushies%E3%80%90pics%E3%80%91\/\">the Year of the Horse has been underway since January 1<\/a>, since the country doesn\u2019t observe the lunar calendar. Even still, many people in Japan are aware that on this year <strong>Chinese New Year<\/strong> falls on February 17, because as one of China\u2019s longest vacation periods, it brings with it some of the largest crowds of Chinese tourists to Japan.<\/p>\n<p>At least, that\u2019s what usually happens. This year, though, things might be very different, as <strong>the Chinese government has called on Chinese citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan, saying that the country has too much crime and too many earthquakes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cWith the Lunar New Year approaching, we call on the citizens of China to refrain from traveling to Japan for the time being\u201d<\/strong> said China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement issued on Monday. Why? Because, according to the ministry, <strong>\u201cRecently, public safety in Japanese society is unstable, and many incidents of crime targeting Chinese citizens are occurring. Earthquakes have also been occurring in succession, and Chinese citizens are facing serious threats to their safety in Japan.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u25bc It is unclear how\/why Japanese earthquakes would pose a greater threat to Chinese citizens than to people of other nations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-725348\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/01\/cw-2.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"410\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If this is sounding vaguely familiar, back in the fall, the Chinese government became upset over then-new Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s remarks that <strong>Japan would not look kindly upon an attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan<\/strong>. In thinly-veiled retaliation, in November, the Chinese government, and later the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, issued statements telling Chinese citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan on the grounds of nebulous undefined personal safety reasons. Since then, the Chinese government has done nothing to walk back its contention that Japan, well-documented as one of the safest countries in the world for travelers, is too dangerous for Chinese citizens to risk going to.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, Japan hasn\u2019t had an abnormal amount of destructive seismic activity in recent months (no lives were lost in the December 8 earthquake in Aomori Prefecture), nor has there been any reported uptick in crimes against Chinese nationals. Really, <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/tag\/bear-attacks\/\">the biggest safety concern in Japan over the past year has been bears<\/a>, but with winter here they\u2019ve been hibernating and taking a break from attacking us humans.<\/p>\n<p>\u25bc Plus, by the time the animals do wake up in the spring, <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/2026\/01\/21\/japanese-city-to-deploy-anti-bear-drones-against-ursine-adversaries-stages-adorable-demo%E3%80%90vid%E3%80%91\/\">Japan\u2019s new bear-control drones should be ready to start flying sorties<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-725349\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/01\/cw-1.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Taking all of that into account, the warning against traveling to Japan during the nine-day Chinese New Year vacation period is another clear attempt at intimidating Japan into softening its stance on supporting Taiwan, lest it lose out on all the money that Chinese travel agencies (who are more susceptible to domestic political pressure than independent Chinese travelers) would be bringing into the Japanese hospitality sector with their large group tours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>However, even with Chinese New Year coming up soon, the Chinese government\u2019s intimidation ploy doesn\u2019t have the best timing<\/strong>. Since the initial travel warning in November, <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/tag\/china-travel-warning\/\">we\u2019ve been making the rounds of some of Japan\u2019s most popular tourism destinations with international visitors<\/a>, and they haven\u2019t turned into ghost towns at all. While we have noticed <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/2025\/12\/06\/chinas-dont-go-to-japan-warning-seems-to-be-affecting-osakas-namba-and-dotonbori-neighborhoods\/\">a dip in customers at certain shops that have large Chinese tourist clienteles<\/a>, for the most part the places that had lots of foreign tourists before the Chinese government\u2019s travel warnings <a href=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/2026\/01\/24\/chinas-dont-go-to-japan-warning-looks-to-be-affecting-tourist-crowds-on-miyajima\/\">still have lots of international tourists now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-725351\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/01\/cw-3.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because the warnings are coinciding with a historic high in international interest in Japanese culture, both modern and traditional, and also a generational low in the price of the yen versus foreign currencies. With overtourism having become a major topic of conversation in Japan over the past year, there\u2019s already a growing feeling that the country\u2019s most popular tourism sites, as well as the nearby hotels, restaurants, transportation networks, and other travel-related infrastructure, is getting close to capacity. China was one of the first countries from which Japan started receiving leisure travelers en masse, and there was a time, not all that long ago, when the threat of a dip in Chinese tourist numbers would have sent shockwaves throughout the hospitality industry in Tokyo, Kyoto, and other high-profile destinations. With Japan\u2019s inbound foreign tourist demographic having become much more internationalized, however, it\u2019s more likely than ever that the extra capacity created by an absence of visitors from Chinese tourists will simply be filled by people hailing from other nations, limiting its effectiveness in persuading the Japanese government to forsake Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ntv.co.jp\/category\/international\/078bdbb61f594fb199581db8c8216002\">Nitele News<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.esuteru.com\/archives\/10488325.html\">Hachima Kiko<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Top image: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20200407108post-26673.html\">Pakutaso<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Insert images: Pakutaso (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20170900244post-13051.html\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20190935245post-22506.html\">2<\/a>), SoraNews24<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RocketNews24En\">Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RocketNews24En\">Twitter<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"notranslate\" data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-bgimage=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-border-top=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-border-right=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-border-bottom=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-border-left=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-boxshadow=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-fill=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-stroke=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-color=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-outline=\"\" data-darkreader-inline-stopcolor=\"\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Japan has too many criminals and earthquakes to be safe for Chinese people. In Japan, the Year of the Horse has been underway since&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}