Beijing — Just days after China issued an advisory against traveling to Japan, the cancellations started.

About 3,000 Chinese visit Rie Takeda's tearoom in an alley in Tokyo's historic Asakusa district every year. Some 200 have already canceled bookings for her tea ceremony class, as far ahead as January.

“I just hope the Chinese tourists return by Chinese New Year," she said, referring to the major holiday period in February. Past experience suggests it may take longer than that.

China's government is turning to a well-used playbook to express its displeasure with Japan for refusing to retract a statement by its new prime minister on the hot-button issue of Taiwan.

As with its tariffs on Australian wines in 2020, and restrictions on Philippine banana imports in 2012, Beijing is using

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