China has told Japan it will suspend imports of Japanese seafood, Kyodo News said on Wednesday, citing a government source, as the bilateral tensions continue to spiral downwards.
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The suspension would come less than five months after Beijing announced it would lift a nearly two-year import ban on some Japanese seafood. Beijing had cited worries over Japan’s release of treated waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Before the ban in 2023, China, including Hong Kong, accounted for more than a third of all Japan’s seafood exports, according to official data in 2022.
The suspension, if confirmed by China, would mark another retaliation measure by Beijing against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after she told parliament on November 7 that an attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation”, which would justify the deployment of Japan’s military.
The remarks have since drawn intense rebukes from Beijing, which sees Takaichi’s statement as meddling in China’s internal affairs.
Takaichi has refused to retract her remarks.
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Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account under state broadcaster CCTV, said at the weekend that China’s “substantive countermeasures” had been prepared.
Those might include adding Japanese companies to an “unreliable entity list” or suspending intergovernmental exchanges in economic, diplomatic or military affairs, it said.