Toyota suspended production at a car assembly plant in Guangzhou after labour unrest at a factory in the Nansha district of the city that supplies it with parts.
The strike by about 300 workers at Denso (Guangzhou Nansha) Co, which stretched into its second day, has caused the plant to stop supplying its fuel injection equipment and other products to Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen and other carmaking clients. It is the latest in a string of work stoppages to hit foreign operations across the mainland.
Workers at Toyoda Gosei, a Tianjin car parts factory affiliated with Toyota, went on strike on Thursday. Workers at another supplier of the carmaker, Tianjin Star Light Rubber and Plastic - also a Toyoda Gosei unit - downed tools on Tuesday last week.
Denso (Guangzhou Nansha), owned by Japan's Denso Corporation, is a Toyota affiliate and has 1,100 workers.
A Beijing-based spokesman for Toyota said production at its joint-venture plant Guangqi Toyota, also in Nansha, had been suspended since yesterday morning, and he could not say when work would resume. It employs 6,000 people.
Beijing-based spokesmen for Honda and Volkswagen said their production had not been affected.