Operations on 25 air routes connecting China and Japan were fully suspended in June, Chinese state media reported, amid deepening tensions between the two countries.
The state-run Global Times, citing flight-tracking platform DAST, said Tuesday that 25 air routes, including flights from China to Osaka and Tokyo, were completely halted last month. A total of 1,488 flights were canceled, for a cancellation rate of 37.5%.
The Global Times cited the route between Beijing Daxing Airport and Osaka Kansai Airport as a representative example, noting that it previously operated 90 flights per month but is now not operating at all. The Shanghai-Okayama route and the Shenyang-Osaka route were also both suspended.
Shanghai and Osaka, considered the second-largest cities of China and Japan respectively, recorded the highest cancellation rate. On this route, a total of 325 flights were canceled in June, for a cancellation rate of 45.3%.
The decline in flights is due to a sharp drop in Chinese demand for travel to Japan. According to Japanese government statistics, the number of tourists visiting Japan from China in May fell 60.4% from a year earlier. The Chinese government has recommended that its citizens refrain from traveling to Japan, saying that the safety environment for Chinese nationals in Japan is continuously deteriorating.
Korea and Southeast Asian countries are emerging as alternative travel destinations to Japan, the Global Times reported. In the first half of this year, flights between China and Korea surpassed pre-2019 levels, and the recovery rate of operations on Thailand routes rose to 64.7%. The Global Times cited Japan's increase in visa issuance fees for foreigners, in contrast to Korea's extension of a measure waiving group tourist visa fees for six countries including China, as reasons for the success in attracting tourists.
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, argued that "as Chinese tourists decline, Korea is absorbing short-distance travel demand and Europe is absorbing summer long-distance travel demand, so Japan's market share is being dispersed to other countries."
Relations between China and Japan have been cooling rapidly since Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's remarks suggesting intervention "in a Taiwan contingency." Japanese tourism to China has likewise been declining.
According to Japan's Kyodo News, a China desk official at a major Japanese travel agency said, "As cancellations surged and were compounded by reductions in Japan-China routes, Japanese travelers have dropped by 90%." In Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, famous for the Terracotta Warriors World Heritage site, all direct flights to Japan have been suspended. A Chinese guide who has provided Japanese-language tour guidance in Xi'an for about 30 years expressed disappointment, saying, "This year, I have not been able to guide a single Japanese tourist."
