BEIJING - The annual Beijing International Film Festival scheduled for April this year will skip a program featuring Japanese movies, organizers said Tuesday, as bilateral ties remain strained following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks on a Taiwan contingency.
The Japan week had been held as part of the Beijing event and the Shanghai International Film Festival almost every year since 2006. In Japan, the Tokyo International Film Festival has featured Chinese movies in its China week.
The Japanese movie program was not cancelled even when Sino-Japanese tensions escalated in 2012 after Tokyo brought the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea under state control and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The uninhabited islands are claimed by China.
An official of the Japan-China Film Festival Executive Committee, a Tokyo-based nonprofit body which cosponsored the past Japan film weeks in China, said the organizers have told the group they will forgo this year's program.
"We are sorry because the event had been held for a long time," the official said. It remains undecided whether the Shanghai festival scheduled for June will hold the Japan film week.
The ongoing tensions between the two Asian neighbors stem from Takaichi's parliamentary remarks last November suggesting Japan could deploy its defense forces in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
The diplomatic row has affected the Japanese entertainment industry, with the postponement or cancellation in China of movie screenings, concerts, performances by artists as well as animation events.
The release of the latest movie in the "Crayon Shin-chan" anime series and the musical "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" have been called off.
