Chinese Honda workers will be off the job for several days due to mounting protests.
Japanese automakers operating in China are facing a new wave of troubles as political tensions between the two Asian powerhouses escalated due to a dispute over tiny uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. At least three major makers have temporarily idled their Chinese factories as anti-Japanese sentiments reach levels not seen for decades.
The People’s Daily, the newspaper favored by China’s ruling Communist party, said Japanese automakers are facing tough times in China, as ongoing territorial tensions between the two countries “start to hurt sales.”
“The serious impact we are seeing is far beyond our expectations,” Luo Lei, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, told the People’s Daily. “It will be impossible for struggling Japanese automakers to achieve their full-year sales targets.”
Luo added that the current situation might have the “most serious” impact seen so far on well-established Japanese car brands in China, and could be even worse than the lackluster market performance seen in the first half after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last year, and from which the Japanese car companies had just managed to recover.
A number of major Japanese makers, among them Toyota, Honda and Mazda, announced factory shutdowns in China on Monday and urged expatriates to stay indoors ahead of what could be more angry protests over a territorial dispute between Asia’s two biggest economies.
China’s worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades led to weekend demonstrations and violent attacks on well-known Japanese businesses such as carmakers Toyota and Honda, forcing frightened Japanese into hiding and prompting Chinese state media to warn that trade relations could now be in jeopardy.
Another outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment is expected across China on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan’s 1931 violent occupation of parts of mainland China, according to regional news reports.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the government would protect Japanese firms and citizens and called for protesters to obey the law.
China and Japan, which generated two-way trade of $345 billion last year, are arguing over the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a long-standing dispute that erupted last week when the Japanese government decided to buy some of them from a private Japanese owner.
Toyota said its factories and offices were operating as normal on Monday and that it had not ordered its Japanese employees home.
Honda said it would suspend production in China starting on Tuesday for two days. Fast Retailing Co, Asia’s largest apparel retailer, said it had closed some of its Uniqlo outlets in China and may close yet more.
Mazda Motor Corp halted production at its Nanjing factory, which it jointly operates with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co Ltd and Ford Motor Co, for four days. Nissan Motor Co suspended China production for two days, starting Monday, according to reports from China.
In Guangzhou in Southern China where Japanese cars sell well, police said on their official microblog that they had detained 11 people for smashing up a Japanese-brand car, shop windows and billboards on Sunday.