Since the dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea (which are known as the Diaoyu Islands in China), Japanese car sales have plummeted in China. Earlier this month, Toyota announced its Chinese sales have dropped by nearly half from the same month a year ago. Honda, Nissan and Mazda all reported their sales down by over a third. Those dropped sales, along with the vandalizing of businesses, street protests in front of Japanese stores, and lower sales of other Japanese goods make the purchase price of the three islands in the Senkaku chain, ¥2 billion from the government's contingency reserves, look much, much more expensive.
In the current globalized marketplace, the economic effects of political disputes can be felt very quickly. In less than a year, Japanese automobile sales in China have been taken over by other countries. Germany's Volkswagen and America's General Motors have reported an expanded share of the Chinese car market, up to 15 percent each. The South Korean carmaker Hyundai, along with its affiliate Kia, has achieved a nine percent share of the Chinese market.
The Japanese rightist politicians and anti-China activists using the Senkaku Islands issue to arouse national pride have only ended up harming the nation's economy. Japanese businesses that have invested a lot of time, money and effort into the Chinese market are suffering. If those people fanning the flames of this conflict with speeches truly loved Japan, they would think more carefully before not to undertake actions that could damage Japanese business interests and hurt the economy.