News Ferry operations between Shanghai, Kobe and Osaka suspended

An Osaka-based ferry company said it had been asked by its Chinese counterpart to halt passenger services for the time being and would comply. The firm, Japan–China International Ferry, usually runs the "Jian Zhen Hao" between Kobe or Osaka and Shanghai, but explained on Monday that its Chinese partner had warned late last week that travel between the two countries was no longer safe. Freight operations would carry on as usual. Speaking to NHK, company president Murakami Koichi said the move had come out of the blue and that the firm hoped the route could reopen before long.

The Chinese side's decision appears to have been prompted by a remark that Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae made in the Diet last month about a possible Taiwan emergency. The company's ferry services began in 1985. They were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic and other factors, and had been resumed in June this year for the first time in five and a half years

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