JAPAN: China Responds to PM & more – 20th Nov 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 20th of November twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

On Friday the 14th, China told its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan because of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about a potential Taiwan-related emergency threatening Japan’s security—which we covered on our previous show. China said her remarks have damaged the relationship between the two countries and created safety risks for Chinese nationals in Japan.

The warning has raised concerns about tourism and educational exchanges, especially since China is Japan’s largest source of visitors, with almost seven and a half million travelers from January to September.

Aside from warning its citizens away from travel, China has also banned scallop imports from Japan. However, most scallop producers didn’t care that much. They already spent two years working around a ban from China on seafood imports that was only lifted in June, so another ban of the same type didn’t even make fisheries blink.

However, China’s response didn’t end there. On Sunday the 16th, the country sent a Coast Guard vessel group through waters near the Senkaku Islands in southern Japan, saying that it was a lawful rights-protection patrol. It also ramped up aircraft and navy patrols, with Taiwan saying it saw thirty Chinese military aircraft and seven ships pass close by over a twenty-four-hour period starting on Saturday the 15th.

Online response was a mix between those who said that Takaichi should just take her statement back, but many more said that China has been acting aggressively for years now and is trying to provoke Japan into starting a fight.

To know more about this story, check out the Rorshok Ocean Update. Link in the show notes!

With all this talk of war, Takaichi has suggested that Japan may need to think about its long-standing three non-nuclear principles—no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons—especially since the country is already relying on the US’s nuclear power to back up its own security.

An opinion piece on the newspaper Mainichi’s website criticized Takaichi’s position, warning that it would undo decades of commitment to peace and betray Japan’s own atomic bomb survivors. Past agreements allowing US nuclear-armed vessels already complicated the non-nuclear principles, but revisiting them risks distrust in the government. As such, critics argue Japan should reinforce global nuclear taboos and lead disarmament efforts, not weaken its own ideals.

In bear stories, which we have been covering for some time now, some places in Japan are upping their game to keep bears away from populated areas. In Hida, Gifu Prefecture, central Japan, officials started using drones to broadcast hunting-dog sounds or deploy small fireworks to drive the animals back into the mountains.

Since bears have also been hurting crops, on Friday the 14th, two drones conducted six flights over and around an orchard where a farmer reported bear droppings and damaged fruit. Locals hope the drones will keep the bears away.

The prefectural government plans to expand drone flights to other places and see how effective they are.

Over in southwestern Japan, in Sakurajima, Kagoshima Prefecture, a volcano erupted on Sunday the 16th. Even though this volcano is one of the most active ones in Japan, this eruption stood out because it sent ash over four kilometers or almost three miles in the sky, its highest plume of ash since October twenty twenty-four. The eruption led to ashfall forecasts for parts of Kagoshima, Kumamoto, and Miyazaki Prefectures.

Thankfully, neither the eruption nor the ash has hurt anyone or damaged anything, even though the eruption shot out some pretty big rocks. The alert level remained at three for several days, limiting access and causing some airlines to cancel flights going through that area.

Also in southwestern Japan, a massive fire started in Oita City on Tuesday the 18th. It began with a house fire that spread into a nearby forest. The fire has burned almost 50,000 square meters or 160,000 square feet of land, destroying over 170 homes.

Until Thursday the 20th, the fire has killed one person. Prefectural authorities activated the Disaster Relief Law and requested assistance from the Self-Defense Forces. Even though the fire hasn’t gotten worse since Wednesday the 19th, firefighter crews from both Oita and nearby Kumamoto Prefectures are still battling against blazes and smoke.

Things aren’t going well in the Seto Inland Sea in western Japan either. The Hiroshima governor met with the fisheries minister on Wednesday the 19th because of the unusually high amount of oyster deaths in the region. Many oyster farms have reported mortality rates of sixty to ninety percent, which is way more than the usual thirty to fifty percent. It’s especially bad in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan’s top oyster producer.

Experts said that the combination of high water temperatures from climate change and high salt content of the water caused the oyster deaths. Nearby Okayama and Hyogo also reported damage, but other regions remain normal. Industry groups and governors are seeking government aid, saying that this could seriously hurt local economies and tourism in the area.

In other news, according to the broadcasting network NHK, Hideyo Hanazumi, the governor of Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, will approve restarting the Number Six reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. Tokyo Electric Power Company owns the plant and is the same owner of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and this will mark the company’s first reactor restart since the twenty eleven Fukushima disaster.

Hanazumi plans to announce the decision on Friday the 21st so that the prefectural assembly will look over it in early December. The move follows a request from the central government, local surveys, and talks with municipal leaders.

Meanwhile, the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun awarded its thirty-second Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize to Rumiko Seya, president of the non-profit organization Reach Alternatives, for more than two decades of peacebuilding work. Seya has focused on preventing conflict and fostering women peacemakers in regions such as Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Syria.

She will receive the prize and five million yen, which is 31,000 dollars, at a ceremony in Tokyo on the 2nd of December.

Japan’s national robot contest took place on Sunday the 15th and brought together twenty-five student teams that had won regional qualifiers. Their robots had three minutes to stack cardboard boxes into a gate according to the contest’s theme, Great High Gate, then guide a cart carrying a robot and a person through the gate to score points.

In the final, Asahikawa’s team claimed the championship with a robot that was both fast and accurate. Kumamoto’s team earned the best-idea award for building the tallest gate at over four meters or thirteen feet.

Speaking of competitions, Sota Fujii, a twenty-three-year-old shogi player, won the annual professional shogi tournament for the fifth time in a row, earning the Dragon King or Ryuo title once again. This made him the third player eligible for the lifetime Ryuo honor and the youngest to qualify for a lifetime title. Part of his strategy was created through study methods using AI, which some said just shows how much the game has grown with the times.

However, some prefer to celebrate tradition, like the historic town of Takatori in Nara Prefecture, western Japan, with its annual Takatori Castle Festival. The event will take place on Sunday the 23rd with colorful parades and recreations of historic scenes. The biggest feature is a matchlock gun performance alongside swordfighting and a traditional Japanese drumming called taiko.

The festival will take place at Takatori Children’s Park, which is just a ten-minute walk from Tsubosakayama Station. You can find out more about the event on the official website, link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Mata Ne!