China warned its citizens on Monday against travelling to Japan during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, citing deteriorating public security, with Tokyo and Beijing locked in a diplomatic spat.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s suggestion in November that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan triggered a sharp backlash from China.

That included Beijing urging its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan.

The number of Chinese visitors to Japan plummeted by 45 percent last month from a year earlier, to around 330,000, as a result of the spat.

China’s foreign ministry reiterated its travel warning on Monday by telling citizens to avoid visiting Japan, especially during the lengthy Lunar New Year holiday in February.

“Recently, public security in Japan has deteriorated, with frequent incidents of illegal and criminal acts targeting Chinese citizens,” the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of Consular Affairs said in a statement.

“Chinese citizens in Japan face serious security threats,” the department said.

It also said there had been a series of earthquakes in some areas in the country, causing injuries.

Chinese visitors once made up a quarter of all foreign tourists in Japan, with almost 7.5 million people travelling from China in the first nine months of 2025, according to official Japanese figures.

Attracted by a weak yen, Chinese tourists splashed out the equivalent of $3.7 billion in the third quarter.

The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday in China is expected to lead to a surge in domestic and outbound travel.

There was a significant jump in Chinese tourists visiting Japan during the period last year from the previous period, state news agency Xinhua said.