NPR.
This is the indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Darian Woods.
And today we have NPR's international correspondent, Emily Fang on with us.
Hey, Emily.
Always a pleasure.
Glad to be with you, Darian.
And what do we have today?
I have a story for you about.
Boycotts and this particular one started with China being very mad at Japan.
These two countries have been in a bit of a diplomatic chill,
and the Chinese state as a result has been shaping what people can and cannot buy from Japan.
We usually think about boycotts as these bottom-up groundswells of public anger.
But for today's episode, I want to look at how a state can organize a boycott,
whether they work, and what the purpose of a boycott even is.
This spat between China and Japan all started with these remarks from Japan's new Prime Minister,
Asane Itakaichi, in early November.
She's addressing Japan's parliament,
and she says if China deploys warships with the use of military force against Taiwan,
that that could lead to a survival-threatening situation for Japan.