The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the processing routs of Japanese Kanji words for the Taiwanese learners of Japanese were different between cognates and non-cognates in Japanese-Chinese. Two experiments were performed by using a semantic-decision task. In experiment 1, involving cognates, the interference was shown similar in both the reaction times and the error rates only when the targets were orthographically. This result indicated that the meaning of Japanese Kanji word was accessed directly from orthography or phonology of the Chinese. The phonology of Japanese did not contribute to the accessing of Japanese Kanji word. In experiment 2, involving non-cognates, a significant interaction was observed in both the reaction times and the error rates. This result indicated that the phonology of Japanese did contribute to the accessing of Japanese Kanji word as well as the orthography. It is suggested that the processing routs of Japanese Kanji words varied according to the lexical relationship between Japanese and Chinese.