JAKARTA GLOBE



 

Just days after China issued an advisory against traveling to Japan, the cancellations began.

About 3,000 Chinese tourists visit Rie Takeda’s tearoom in a Tokyo alley each year. But some 200 have already canceled bookings for her tea ceremony classes, stretching as far ahead as January.

“I just hope the Chinese tourists return by Chinese New Year,” she said, referring to the major holiday in February. Past experience suggests the wait could be much longer.

China is again turning to a familiar playbook to signal its displeasure with Japan for refusing to retract a statement by its new prime minister on the highly sensitive issue of Taiwan.