China says trade cooperation with Japan ‘severely damaged’ by Taiwan comments

BEIJING/TOKYO: Trade cooperation between China and Japan has been “severely damaged”, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday, urging the Japanese prime minister to retract her comments on Taiwan or face the consequences.

A diplomatic spat between China and Japan has intensified since Sanae Takaichi told parliament on November 7 that a hypothetical Chinese attack on democratically-ruled Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

“Prime Minister Takaichi’s openly erroneous remarks concerning Taiwan have fundamentally undermined the political foundation of China-Japan relations and severely damaged bilateral economic and trade exchanges,” He Yongqian, a ministry spokesperson told a regular news conference.

“Should the Japanese side persist on its course of action and continue down the wrong path, China will resolutely take the measures required and all consequences shall be borne by Japan.”

A spokesperson for Takaichi said her comments on Taiwan did not change existing Japanese policy.

China is Japan’s second-largest export market after the United States, buying about $125 billion of Japanese goods in 2024, mainly industrial equipment, semiconductors and automobiles, according to UN COMTRADE data.

Tokyo could struggle to find alternative markets if China closes its doors to Japanese goods. South Korea, its third-largest export destination, absorbed only $46 billion worth last year, the data shows.

He said she had “no information to provide at present” when asked to confirm reports that China had indicated it would ban all imports of Japanese seafood.

The world’s second-largest economy has a record of taking coercive trade actions against its neighbour.

In 2023, Beijing imposed a blanket ban on imports of all Japanese seafood after Tokyo decided to release radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN body, had concluded the discharge was safe.

In 2010, China halted rare earth exports to Japan for about seven weeks after Japanese authorities detained a Chinese fishing captain whose vessel had collided with coast guard ships near the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyu Islands.