Sept 14, 2012
Translated by Zhu Na

The diplomatic showdown over the Diaoyu Islands has started to impact car sales and tourism.

Data from China Association of Automobile Manufactures (CAAM) shows that the sales of Japanese-branded vehicles in China dropped 2 percent in August when compared to the same period last year.

Though the slight fall may not sound too dramatic, it occurred against the backdrop of sales of German, U.S. and South Korean branded vehicles rising 25 percent, 19 percent,12 percent respectively.

In one district of Nanchang city in Jiangxi province, sales of Nissans at specialized 4S stores are said to have dropped by more than 20 percent over the first 12 days of this month.

“A lot of customers have stepped back from their intention to buy,” said Wu Zhenqiang (吴振强), a sales consultant from a Dongfeng Nissan dealer in the city.

In Shandong province, new car sales of Japanese brand cars have also been hit.

“Normally orders can reach 70 or 80 cars a month, but despite being halfway through September, we've had very few orders,” said Mu Jialiang (慕佳良), a sales manager with a Dongfeng Honda store in Weihai. “September and October is supposed to be the peak season for car sales, now it seems we won't be able to meet the pre-sales target of 100 cars a month.”

Luo Lei (罗磊), the deputy secretary of China Automobile Dealers Association, told the 21st Century Business Herald that although Japanese cars managed to achieve their sales targets in the first half of the year, it may have difficult for them to meet their target in the second half of the year. Luo also predicted that the market share of Japanese brands might decline.

In August, Mazda sold 16,539 vehicles in China, a year-on-year decline of 6 percent. Toyota sold about 75,300 vehicles over the same period, a year-on-year decline of 15 percent.

Not Just Cars
Tourism and retail has also been impacted by the island dispute.

On Sept 11, a shopping mall in Weihai that has Japanese investors was forced to close due to protests against the Japanese government's recent announcement that it planned to "purchase the islands”. 

“In these three days, almost no customers came [to the shop],” a saleswoman called Liu Ping (刘萍) said.

Many travel agencies confirmed that the number of tourists making bookings to visit Japan has also declined.

Zhang Yi (张义), deputy manager in charge of Japan and South Korea Travel Department of CYTS told Bandao Metro Daily that starting from last week, almost no tourists had enquired about traveling to Japan.

Zhang said they had already canceled one trip of a tourist group which planned to visit Japan on Sept 27 and the plans of another group to visit Japan during the long National Day holidays at the start of October had also been cancelled.

Recently, China Comfort Travel Group issued a statement saying that they will halt an earlier announced plan to send 50,000 tourists to Japan to mark the forty anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. The company also said that all of its 220 subsidiaries and 5,500 stores across China would stop selling Japanese tourism products and stop organizing tourism groups to visit Japan.

Links and Sources
21st Century Business Herald : 钓鱼岛风暴开始波及中日贸易 日系品牌遭遇寒流
Bandao Metro Daily: 中日多项合作及交流取消 青岛大量游客退团
China Daily: Islands \'purchase will hurt economic ties\'
Image: 21st Century Business Herald