钓鱼岛争端考验在华日本品牌

China's tough stance against Japan in an ongoing territorial dispute may have no bigger backer than Yao Xin, a 23-year-old legal assistant who says she refuses to buy Japanese products. 'This is a very big government issue and I will stand by the government,' she said.

对于中国在中日领土争端问题上对日本采取的强硬立场，现年23岁的法律助理姚欣（音）可以算是最大的支持者。姚欣说她拒绝购买日本产品。她说：这是政府的一件很大的事，我将站在政府一边。

Ms. Yao made her vow while standing in a Uniqlo store, a retailer owned by Japan's Fast Retailing Co., in Beijing's Japanese-themed Ginza shopping mall. Informed that the blue-collared shirt she was fingering was being sold by a Japanese company, she said, 'Oh, I didn't know.' Fast Retailing on Wednesday renewed its pledge to expand in China.

在北京银座购物中心内的优衣库(Uniqlo)门店，姚欣说出了这样的誓言。银座购物中心以日本产品为主题，而零售商优衣库为日本迅销公司(Fast Retailing Co.)所有。当得知自己手里摆弄的一件蓝色领子的衬衫是由日本公司销售的，她说，啊，我原来并不知道。迅销公司周三重申了将在华扩大业务的承诺。

Ms. Yao illustrates the complexities behind a nearly four-decade commercial relationship that time and again has bounced back despite occasional diplomatic flare-ups between Tokyo and Beijing. Japanese cars, electronics and clothing have won a high-quality reputation in China, contributing to Japan's $161.47 billion in exports to China last year.

从姚欣身上体现出中日近40年的商贸关系背后的复杂性，尽管中日偶尔会爆发外交冲突，两国间的商贸关系却总可以恢复。日本生产的汽车、电子产品和服装在中国赢得了高质量的声誉，去年日本对华出口总额达1,614.7亿美元。

At the moment, Japanese brands and business in China are suffering as the two sides argue over competing claims to group of rocky islands in the East China Sea. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 2% on Wednesday, its largest daily percentage decline since May. The fall came after Toyota Motor Corp. -2.67% and Nissan Motor Co. -2.64% said they would begin holiday closures of Chinese plants earlier than planned due to softening demand. On Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the two nations met at the United Nations but failed to make headway in talks.

眼下，随着中日围绕东中国海(East China Sea，中国称东海)一组多岩石的岛屿发生领土争端，在华日本品牌和企业开始受到冲击。日经指数周三下跌了2%，是5月以来最大单日百分比跌幅。此前，丰田汽车(Toyota Motor Corp.)和日产汽车(Nissan Motor Co.)说，由于需求不断走软，在华工厂将比原计划提前停工过“十一”假期。周二，中国外交部长和日本外务大臣在联合国举行会面，但会谈没有取得进展。

Campaigns against Japanese brands have continued online nearly two weeks after the cessation of protests in a number of cities, in which some Japanese stores and car dealerships were vandalized. 'Recommended actions: Make no missteps, absolutely do not buy Japanese products, not even those that were designed in Japan,' wrote one Japan critic, Wang Wei , who has 41,000 followers on China's Sina Weibo Twitter-like microblogging service.

最近中国多座城市举行反日抗议活动，一些日本商店和汽车经销店遭到破坏。在抗议活动结束近两周后，抵制日货的运动仍在网络上继续。一位批评日本的人士王伟（音）在新浪微博上写道，建议做法：别搞错，坚决不买日货，甚至是日本设计的产品。王伟在新浪微博上有4.1万粉丝。

Auto-industry experts blamed the tensions for a drop in China sales last month for Toyota and Mazda Motor Corp., -2.13% though Honda Motor Co. -4.88% saw a 15% rise from a year earlier.

汽车业专家将上个月丰田和马自达(Mazda Motor Corp.)在华销量下滑归咎于中日之间的紧张关系。不过，本田汽车(Honda Motor Co.)销量同比却上升了15%。

Branding experts say the road back for Japanese brands has been complicated by the rise of social-media services in China, which have given anti-Japanese activists greater ability to rally Chinese consumers. 'Complaints now spread quicker and harder,' said Nicole Fall, head of trends at Asia-focused consumer research firm Five by Fifty.

品牌营销专家说，日本品牌重回中国的道路因中国社交媒体服务的兴起而变得更加困难。中国社交媒体网站使反日活动人士团结中国消费者的能力增强。专注于亚洲的消费者研究公司Five by Fifty的趋势研究负责人福尔(Nicole Fall)说，不满情绪现在扩散得更快、更猛。

Panasonic Corp. -3.36% said that one TV station in Shanghai earlier this month stopped running commercials for Japanese wares and also suspended programs sponsored by Japanese companies. It's very difficult to predict whether and how much the political tensions might affect Japanese businesses in China this time, said Toshihiko Shibuya, a Panasonic spokesman based in Beijing.

松下电器产业公司(Panasonic Corp.)说，上海一家电视台本月早些时候停播了日本商品广告，还暂停了日本公司赞助的节目的播出。松下驻北京发言人Toshihiko Shibuya说，很难预测这次中日之间的政治紧张关系是否可能对在华日本企业造成影响，以及造成多大影响。

Past flare-ups include anti-Japan demonstrations in China in 2005 following visits by Japanese leaders to a controversial Tokyo war shrine that Chinese officials say honors World War II war criminals. In 2010, the detention of a Chinese fishing-boat captain involved in a collision with Japanese patrol boats in waters near the islands led to reports that China had cut off exports of key manufacturing minerals known as rare earths. But business over that period rose unabated, as Japanese exports to China more than doubled between 2005 and 2011.

在过去，日本领导人参拜靖国神社曾令中国不满，在中国引发了包括2005年在内的反日示威活动。中国官员称，靖国神社供奉的是第二次世界大战中的战犯。2010年，在日中争议岛屿附近水域，日本巡逻船与中国船只相撞，并导致中国船长被捕。此后有报道称，中国切断了对日本重要制造业矿物原料稀土的出口。但在这段时期，商业活动仍旧保持增长，日本对华出口从2005年到2011年增长了超过一倍。

This year's furor has occasionally reached violent levels. Police in China have turned to social media for help in tracking down a man who last week allegedly hit in the head a man driving a Toyota in the western Chinese city of Xi'an, leaving him hospitalized.

今年的冲突则不时升级为暴力活动。中国警方已经在社交媒体上通缉一名男子，据称该男子上周在中国西部城市西安重击一名丰田车主头部并导致后者住院。

Still, Japanese brands have a considerable cushion in China. Prior to the recent dispute, Japanese car-brand dealers ranked the highest in perception of best service, according to a survey of nearly 15,000 Chinese vehicle owners from market research company J.D. Power.

尽管如此，日本品牌在中国仍有相当大的缓冲空间。根据市场研究公司J.D. Power & Associates对大约1.5万名中国车主的调查显示，在最近的争议爆发之前，日系车经销商的服务口碑最好。

There's also confusion in China, where Japanese restaurants and stores are staffed-and sometimes owned-by Chinese. Online critics of the anti-Japanese push have pointed at China-owned businesses like sushi joints that have to put pro-China signs in their windows. 'Many recognize that this is perceived as a loss of dignity,' said Tom Doctoroff, North Asia area director and Greater China CEO of ad agency JWT. 'It will die down, and they [Chinese consumers] will reassert their pragmatism.'

中国在这个问题上也存在困惑，因为在华的日本餐馆和商店里的员工都是中国人，有时连老板也是中国人。网上反日行动的批评人士指出，中国人拥有的寿司店等店铺不得不在窗户上张贴爱国的标志。广告公司智威汤逊(JWT)北亚总监兼大中华区首席执行长唐锐涛(Tom Doctoroff)说，许多人已经意识这种做法是斯文扫地，反日情绪会慢慢平息，中国消费者会重拾他们的实用主义。

On Wednesday, Fast Retailing Chief Executive Tadashi Yanai said that his company has no plans to slow its China expansion down. 'If possible we would like to open 100 stores in China annually and we have prospect of opening 80 stores this year,' he said.

周三，迅销公司首席执行长柳井正(Tadashi Yanai)说，他的公司没有打算放慢在中国的扩张步伐。他说：如果可能，我们将每年在中国新开100家店，今年我们可能有80家新店在中国开张。

Ban Lu, 30, said Uniqlo sells some of the best clothing she can find in Beijing and her government's standoff with Japan has no impact on her shopping habits. Ms. Ban, a native of China's northeastern Hebei province, said as she shopped at the Uniqlo store in Beijing's Ginza mall that the dispute was a government issue and should be separated from individuals' shopping decisions. 'It's up to me what I want to buy, and quality is what I want to buy.'

今年30岁的班露（音）说，她认为优衣库是北京最好的服装品牌之一，中国政府与日本的紧张关系不会影响她的购物喜好。班露来自中国河北省，她在北京银座购物中心的优衣库门店购物时说，领土争议是政府的问题，应该与个人的购物决定区别开来。她说：我想买什么由我决定，我想要买质量好的东西。

The issue has also sparked humor attempts on China's Internet. One popular joke-tweaking the well-known taste of China's officials for luxurious foreign brands and sometime confusion over what is a Japanese brand as opposed to a different import-has one government functionary protectively asking his assistant whether anything he owns is Japanese. No, the assistant replies: His watch is Swiss, his clothing Italian, his car German and his mistresses Chinese. 'In that case, let's unite the people and boycott Japanese goods!' he says.

领土争议问题还在互联网上引发了一些调侃。一则广为传播的笑话反映了中国官员对外国奢侈品牌的喜好，以及对日本品牌和其他外国品牌区别的一知半解。笑话中说：一名中国官员让秘书查身边有什么日货，秘书汇报：一件都没有，您的表是瑞士的，衣服是意大利的，车是德国的，情人是中国的。中国官员说：那就全民一心，抵制日货吧！