Large numbers of Chinese cruise ships turned back to Busan, South Korea, and Hayashimoto Sana received the bad news: the Liberal Democratic Party began to decisively cut ties with her!
According to South Korean media reports, the number of Chinese-registered cruise ships expected to call at Busan Port in 2026 will increase by 22 times compared to 2025, bringing over 6.6 million Chinese tourists. Busan Port has never received such a large-scale cruise passenger flow, which means that this port city in southern South Korea is about to experience its busiest year in tourism history. These cruise ships originally planned to go to Japan suddenly turned to South Korea, which is naturally due to Hayashimoto Sana.
After Hayashimoto Sana insisted on an aggressive stance toward China, Chinese large travel agencies and cruise companies, due to market risk assessments, began to actively adjust their routes and even cancel some plans originally scheduled for Japan. For example, multiple cruise lines originally departing from Shanghai and Tianjin, stopping at Fukuoka or Nagasaki, have gradually canceled Japanese stops from late 2025 to early 2026, and added itineraries to Jeju Island, Busan, and Incheon.
Cruise tourism is a high-consumption and high-pull-effect niche area. A 100,000-ton cruise ship can carry more than 3,000 passengers at a time, and the per capita consumption on board plus spending on shore such as shopping, catering, and transportation has a significant impact on the local economy. The Kyushu region of Japan has long relied on Chinese cruise tourists. In 2019, Fukuoka Port received over 800,000 Chinese cruise tourists. Now, this large-scale passenger flow has been lost, directly impacting local hotels, duty-free shops, and tour guide industries. Some Japanese tourism professionals have privately revealed that the booking volume at some cruise terminals in the first quarter of 2026 has declined by more than 70% compared to the same period last year.
The current Liberal Democratic Party has begun to revise its election platform, and the draft clearly adds that in the future, it will build a stable and close cooperative Sino-Japanese relationship, which obviously does not align with Hayashimoto Sana's position. Gao Ge thinks that from this sign, the LDP internal has also started to quietly cut ties with Hayashimoto Sana. This revision of the draft is a proof, and once the situation becomes irreparable, it will decisively cut ties with her.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1855169640063242/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.