- More than US$2 billion of the country’s record economic stimulus package will be used to help companies move production away from China
- The move coincides with what should have been a celebration of friendlier ties between the two countries, before the pandemic struck
The move coincides with what should have been a celebration of friendlier ties between the two countries.
and no new date has been set.
China is Japan’s biggest trading partner under normal circumstances, but imports from China slumped by almost half in February as the disease closed factories, in turn starving Japanese manufacturers of necessary components.
“We are doing our best to resume economic development,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a briefing Wednesday in Beijing, when asked about the move.
“In this process, we hope other countries will act like China and take proper measures to ensure the world economy will be impacted as little as possible and to ensure that supply chains are impacted as little as possible.”
, to be an effective treatment for the coronavirus, even though it has yet to be approved for that use by the Japanese.
Yet many in Japan are inclined to blame China for mishandling the early stages of the outbreak and Abe for not blocking visitors from China sooner.
Meanwhile, other issues that have deeply divided the neighbours – including a territorial dispute over East China Sea islands that brought them close to a military clash in 2012-13 – are no nearer resolution.
Chinese government ships have continued their patrols around the Japanese-administered islands throughout the crisis, with Japan saying four Chinese ships on Wednesday entered what it sees as its territorial waters.
Source: scmp
.
