(Yicai) Nov. 18 -- The performance of Japanese industries, including the tourism and auto sectors, and that of various products in the Chinese market may be severely impacted after the relationship between the two countries significantly deteriorated following Japanese politicians' openly provocative remarks on Taiwan, according to several industry insiders.

Japan's tourism and agriculture industries will be most affected by the recent changes in relations with China, Chen Yan, executive director of the Japan Enterprise China Research Institute, told Yicai.

Many Chinese tourists have begun consulting with travel agencies about modifying or canceling their New Year's Day and Chinese New Year trips to Japan, which has long been a major overseas destination for Chinese travelers. This will likely negatively impact multiple Japanese sectors, including tourism, hotels, and consumer goods retail.

The spending of Chinese tourists traveling to Japan is mainly concentrated on accommodation, catering, and shopping, mostly buying electronics, beauty, and food products, the insiders pointed out.

Japan welcomed almost 7.5 million Chinese mainland tourists in the first nine months of this year, more than the nearly 7 million visitors for the whole of last year, who spent JPY1.73 trillion (USD11.1 billion), accounting for 21 percent of the total annual spending by overseas visitors, according to statistics from the Japan National Tourism Organization.

If China-Japan political relations continue to deteriorate, Japanese car exports and the sales of relevant joint venture carmakers in the Chinese market will also be affected to a certain extent, Ji Xuehong, director of the North China University of Technology's Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center, said in an interview with Yicai.

The competitiveness of Japanese vehicles in the Chinese market has been declining, and this will accelerate if the Japanese government fails to correct its mistakes, Ji pointed out. Ties between Japanese carmakers and Chinese partners in electrification, intelligentization, and other tech fields may also be impacted, he added.

Although some Chinese automakers are also striving to export to Japan or directly lay out a local business, Japanese manufacturers and suppliers are more dependent on the Chinese market, so the impact on them will likely be more significant, according to Ji.

Sales of Japanese luxury vehicle brand Lexus in China rose 4 percent to 138,412 units in the nine months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, ranking it as the best-selling imported car brand in the country, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association. However, after such exports topped 235,400 units in 2020, they only reached 180,800 units last year.

Regarding Japanese home appliances, such exports to the Chinese market are already small, Chen noted, adding that the market share of Chinese manufacturers in Japan and the number of local brands they have acquired keep growing.

About 50,000 white goods are exported from Japan to the Chinese market a year, including 30,000 refrigerators and 20,000 washing machines, along with a few hundred air conditioners, Wang Juan, a senior analyst at Industrial Online, said to Yicai.

However, China has always been one of the major consumers of Japanese liquors, with such imports from Japan reaching CNY22 million (USD3.1 million) in the first eight months of this year, including 836,000 liters of whiskey imports for CNY17.4 million (USD2.5 million), according to Chinese customs data. China is also the largest export market for Japanese sake.

Editor: Martin Kadiev