YOKOHAMA -Around 40 percent of ceremonial events in Japan to mark the 40th anniversary of the normalization of ties with China have been canceled or postponed due to Senkaku Islands flareup, a survey by Kyodo News showed Saturday.

Of the roughly 250 events and exchange projects that had been scheduled to take place in the country this year, 100 have been affected across 40 prefectures. More than half of those events were canceled at China's request.

The findings show that the deterioration in bilateral relations has spread to the grassroots level, and Tokyo and Beijing are showing no signs of backing down over the sovereignty of the Japanese-administered Senkakus in the East China Sea, as evidenced by heated exchanges at the U.N. General Assembly last week.

"We are working hard to promote private-level exchange, but our efforts have been spoiled. We feel helpless," said Duan Yuezhong, chief editor of the Duan Press magazine for Chinese nationals living in Japan.

Duan helped to organize a photo exhibition on Japan-China exchanges that was slated to be held in November in Shanghai, but had to be postponed after the Chinese side pulled out.

Many tourists, meanwhile, are canceling flight and ferry reservations to travel between the two countries, forcing airlines and ferry operators to reduce or suspend services on some routes.

HTB Cruise Co., which operates ferry services between Nagasaki and Shanghai, has decided to suspend them after Oct. 9 due to customer cancellations and because Chinese travel agencies have stopped selling tours to Japan. About 70 percent of its ferry customers are Chinese, the company said.

Japan Airlines Corp. also has decided to reduce the number of flights on three routes to China, including between Narita and Beijing, while China's Hainan Airlines Co. has halted services between Naha Airport and the Chinese capital from Sept. 20 to Oct. 27.

Japanese retailers are bracing for a drop in sales next month due to the expected steep decline in Chinese tourists.

"We are afraid that our October sales will be seriously affected, as more tourists are expected to refrain from visiting Japan," said an official at Matsuya Co., which runs a major department store in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza district.

An official at electric appliance retailer Yodobashi Camera Co. said even the vacation period centered around China's National Day on Oct.
1. will fail to boost the number of Chinese tourists.

Describing grassroots exchanges as a "foundation of Japan-China relations," Mitsunaga Tabata, a former Kanagawa University professor and journalist who covered the normalization of bilateral ties in 1972, urged the two sides to start talks, saying they can no longer put off negotiations the way they did 40 years ago.

"Both countries must get to the (negotiating) table and listen to the other side's opinion . . . (as) cursing each other as 'thieves'
doesn't resolve anything," he said, in an apparent reference to comments made Thursday by Chinese diplomats at the U.N. General Assembly.

At one point, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi claimed "Japan stole Diaoyu and affiliated islands from China" in 1895 after winning the Sino-Japanese War, referring to the disputed isles by Beijing's appellation.