A cruise pier in Guilin in Guangxi, China. Signs were in English, Korean, and Vietnamese — but not Japanese. (©Sankei by Shohei Mitsuka)
The number of Japanese living in China continues to shrink. Japan's foreign ministry says the resident population has fallen for 13 straight years through 2025.
The slide reflects a shifting operating climate for Japanese businesses and deepening security worries after incidents such as the fatal stabbing of a Japanese child. Tensions have also risen after China lashed out at Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Diet remarks on a potential Taiwan contingency, raising the prospect that the exodus could accelerate.
A 13-Year Slide
Data from the ministry show that 92,928 Japanese stayed in China for three months or longer as of October 1, 2025, down 4.7% from a year earlier. The decline marked a 13th consecutive annual drop, stretching back to 2013.
Globally, the number of Japanese living abroad rose 0.39% to 1,298,170. The total had been falling since 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but returned to growth, albeit marginally, for the first time in six years.
Japan's resident population in China once topped 150,000 in 2012. That began to reverse after Tokyo moved to nationalize the Senkaku Islands in September of that year, a step that triggered anti-Japan protests across China. Demonstrators attacked Japanese-affiliated supermarkets and other businesses, while assaults that targeted Japanese nationals left several injured. These episodes marked a turning point in the decline.
Squeezed by 'Involution'
Analysts say the continued decline in the number of Japanese residents in China reflects a tangle of factors.
First, competitive pressures on Japanese companies operating in China have intensified. The Chinese economy has slowed in recent years, weighed down in part by a prolonged property downturn. At the same time, Chinese firms have gained ground in emerging industries such as electric vehicles, eroding the relative edge long enjoyed by foreign players, including Japanese companies.
Many are also being drawn into what Chinese business circles call "involution." This is cutthroat, margin-blind competition driven by domestic rivals willing to sacrifice profitability to win market share. In that environment, a growing number of Japanese companies are deciding China is no longer worth the bet.
A second factor is that Japanese companies in China have increasingly built up local talent. Japan's investment push into China began in earnest in the 1990s. Now, more than three decades later, many Chinese units are run by Chinese nationals in senior roles. That has reduced the need to dispatch as many expatriate staff from Japan as in the past.
Further Acceleration?
Tetsuro Homma is chairman of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, an organization of Japanese companies operating in China. He is also Executive Vice President at Panasonic Holdings. Homma said the decline reflects multiple forces, including the localization of management.
Still, he warned that "anxiety over safety and security" among Japanese residents has not gone away. As those concerns persist, some expatriates have been sending accompanying family members back to Japan, he said, and fewer workers are willing to take postings in China.
China's government has escalated retaliatory steps against Japan since November 2025, after Takaichi's Diet remarks about a potential Taiwan contingency. Homma warned that if the current state of Japan–China ties persists, he fears "the decline in the Japanese resident population could accelerate further."
Japanese Tourists Fade from View
Japanese tourists have also become a rarer sight in China. Beijing doesn't publish figures for Japanese visitors, so the exact number is unclear. Still, those familiar with Japan–China ties say travel-industry feedback leaves little doubt that the number of Japanese travelers has fallen.
China has been widening visa-free entry and other measures to revive inbound tourism after foreign travel collapsed during the pandemic. Chinese media have reported that the number of foreign nationals entering and leaving the country in the first half of 2025 rose about 30% from a year earlier. Beijing reinstated visa-free short stays for Japanese visitors in November 2024. However, a travel-industry official in Beijing said trips by Japanese travelers "still haven't rebounded significantly."
Absent from Tourism Recovery
In January 2026, Guilin, a scenic destination in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwest China, drew many foreign travelers. The city is known for cruises along the Li River, which winds between dramatic peaks and limestone formations. Local media reported that the number of foreign tourists welcomed by cruise boats and similar operators last summer (2025) was about four times the level of a year earlier.
A female attendant on one of the river cruises said with a smile that foreign visitors, particularly from elsewhere in Asia, remain plentiful even in the off-season. But she added that group tours from Japan, once common, "have thinned out." At the dock, signage was posted in English, Korean, and Vietnamese — but not Japanese.
At a restaurant in Guilin, a female staff member said Western tourists stop by almost daily, and that South Koreans are not uncommon. "Japanese visitors are now very few," she said. Only one group came in in January. A male taxi driver echoed the sentiment, saying, "We used to get a lot of Japanese tourists, but it seems like they've dropped off as Japan-China relations have worsened."
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(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Shohei Mitsuka, The Sankei Shimbun
