Jeju used to bristle with Chinese tourists who flocked to the South Korean island to enjoy its beach resorts and rugged landscape. But an industry set up to serve Chinese consumers shrivelled up almost overnight in March after Beijing stopped travel agencies from sending groups to South Korea in retaliation at Seoul’s decision to deploy a US missile defence system to protect itself against unpredictable North Korea.
济州岛过去曾挤满了来韩国享受海滩度假胜地和崎岖地貌的中国游客。但是，韩国政府部署美国导弹防御体系、以抵御变化无常的朝鲜的决定招致中国政府报复，中国叫停旅行社组织赴韩游，于是整个为服务中国消费者而建立的产业在今年3月几乎在一夜之间凋零了。
The number of daily visitors from China dropped to 1,000 from more than 7,500 days earlier, according to official figures. The situation is similar in Seoul, where shopping areas once popular with Chinese tourists are deserted.
据官方数据显示，中国游客日接待量从此前的逾7500人下滑至1000人。首尔的情况也类似，那里曾经颇受中国游客欢迎的购物区如今门可罗雀。
“Since March 15, I haven’t seen a single Chinese person come to our shop,” says one salesperson. Another adds: “The company is forcing us to take unpaid leave simply because of the declining number of Chinese tourists.”
“自3月15日以来，我就没见过一个中国游客来我们店里，”一名营业员称。另一名营业员补充道：“公司强迫我们休无薪假，就因为中国游客数量减少。”
The impact has not just been felt by retailers and hotels. Korean carmakers have also been badly hit.
不仅零售商和酒店感受到了这种影响。韩国汽车制造商也受到了重创。
Hyundai reported that sales in China, the world’s biggest automobile market, were down 14 per cent year on year in the first quarter, while Kia’s sales slid 36 per cent, even as the overall market in the country grew 4 per cent over the same period.
现代(Hyundai)财报称，今年第一季度在中国（全球最大汽车市场）的汽车销量同比下滑14%。与此同时，起亚(Kia)在华汽车销量下滑36%，尽管同期中国市场整体增长了4%。
China has been implementing such boycotts against its foes for more than 100 years and it knows how to make them hurt economically and politically.
历史上的中国抵制
Controlling access to China’s vast market gives President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist party tremendous leverage over trading partners and allows them to signal their nationalist credentials to the domestic audience. But Beijing must play a delicate balancing act to ensure that its embargoes neither damage the Chinese economy nor unleash forces of jingoism and protest that could threaten one-party rule.
中国对敌人采取此类抵制措施的历史超过100年，它知道如何让敌人在经济和政治上受到伤害。
Japanese carmakers, Philippine banana farmers and Taiwanese tourism workers have all previously been on the wrong end of hostile campaigns instigated to varying degrees by Beijing and the Communist party-controlled media.
对中国庞大市场入口的把持，赋予了中国国家主席习近平和执政的共产党对贸易伙伴的极大影响力，使得他们可以向国内民众展示自己的民族主义证明。但中国政府必须小心把握平衡，以确保禁运令既不会损害中国经济，也不会释放可能威胁一党统治的沙文主义和抗议力量。
Foreign diplomats and executives dread the accusation of having “upset the feelings of the Chinese people”, the Communist rhetoric often used to trigger an embargo. Their fears are heightened by China’s growing economic might, the strident nationalist tone adopted by Mr Xi and the fact that consumers are easily marshalled on social media sites such as Weibo and WeChat.
此前，日本汽车制造商、菲律宾香蕉种植农和台湾旅游业工作者，都曾在不同程度上由中国政府和中共控制的媒体煽动起来的抵制运动中遭殃。
The results can be devastating, with cars smashed up, factories attacked and years of effort to crack one of the world’s biggest markets undone overnight. “For foreign companies, there’s very little they can do to protect against this kind of politicised action, except lobbying domestically for maintaining strong relations with China,” says Duncan Innes-Ker, a China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
外国的外交官和高管们害怕被指责“伤害了中国人民的感情”——这是中共用来触发禁运的常用措辞。中国日益提升的经济实力、习近平强硬的民族主义论调、以及微博(Weib)和微信(WeChat)等社交媒体网站可以轻易引导消费者行为的现实，都加剧了外国外交官和高管们的恐惧。