1,900 China-Japan flights cancelled in December as political row continues

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By Ralph Jennings

Published December 02, 2025

More than 1,900 flights from China to Japan scheduled for this month have now been cancelled, according to state media reports and travel experts, as a political dispute between the two nations over Taiwan grinds on.

The figure represented more than 40 per cent of the flights from mainland China to Japan scheduled for December, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday, citing data from online platforms.

Li Hanming, an independent civil aviation analyst, said his research indicated that CCTV’s report was broadly accurate, adding that cancellations of flights to Japan also effectively stopped return flights, as airlines tended to schedule routes in pairs.

Tensions between Beijing and Tokyo escalated last month after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested Japan could deploy military forces in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing issued a travel warning on November 14 urging Chinese citizens to avoid visiting Japan, citing safety issues, and several Chinese airlines offered customers refunds on Japan-bound flight bookings until the end of the year.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese travellers have since cancelled their planned trips to Japan, leading airlines to scrap a growing number of scheduled flights. Chinese consumers are also reportedly becoming warier about investing or studying abroad in Japan.

Meanwhile, a string of events featuring Japanese performers – including concerts and a comedy festival – have been spiked in China, and several Japanese films have had their release dates on the mainland pushed back.

Bookings by Chinese tourists for trips to Japan in December were 35 per cent lower than in October, with cancellations continuing, said Subramania Bhatt, CEO of travel marketing and technology firm China Trading Desk.

If the dispute continues, Bhatt said on Monday, Chinese tourism to Japan could be deeply affected well into next year. He forecast that Chinese visitor numbers from January to April 2026 would be 40 to 50 per cent lower than they would be without the political spat, with the “biggest losses on peak dates and major flight routes”.

“The rift looks entrenched now,” Bhatt said. “There’s no obvious sign that travel warnings or rhetoric will ease in the near term.”

Spending by China’s tourists made up about 0.4 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product, meaning a complete halt in Chinese tourism lasting several months “would be painful”, Gavekal Research said in a late November note.

But the company called that scenario “highly unlikely”, as individual travellers tended to heed “moral suasion” less than group tour operators and history suggested that Chinese travel slumps usually blew over relatively quickly.

A prolonged dispute could lead the already “undervalued” Japanese yen to slip to 160 per US dollar, Gavekal added. Japan has become more popular with tourists recently partly because the weak yen makes it a more affordable destination for foreign currency holders.

Russia, South Korea and parts of Southeast Asia are currently seeing a wave of bookings from Chinese tourists who would otherwise visit Japan, travel platforms have found. Russia in particular has become a popular alternative winter destination due to its low prices and visa-free travel policy.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a decree allowing Chinese citizens to enter Russia without a visa for stays of up to 30 days until September 2026, Russian state news agency Tass reported.