Japan’s tuna industry is a typical representative of the healthy and sustainable development of modern industrialized aquaculture models. Beginning in 1970s, tuna production in Japan has become an industry with an annual output value of USD 250 million after going through the short-term stocking model, artificial fattening of juvenile fish model and full life-cycle artificial farming model. At present, the juvenile bluefin tuna is still mainly caught in the wild, and farmed through land-sea relay industrial production systems, in which wild juveniles are bred to a certain size and then transferred to Marine farms for fattening in cages. While in the artificial breeding mode, after spawning, the fertilized eggs are bred to juveniles in land-based freshwater recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), then transported to the sea cage farming. With the decrease of wild fries and the changes of culture environment, tuna culture industry is more inclined to the lifecycle artificial culture mode in Japan, and the culture site is also transforming from open net cages to closed net cages and from inshore to offshore. In China, tuna industry is still dominated by fishing, and industrialized farming is at an exploratory stage, feeling its way in terms of farming technologies. Problems such as low degree of industrial organization, lack of modern farming technology and insufficient market competitiveness are there to be solved. Drawing lessons from the tuna industry development in Japan would help to upgrade the development model of tuna culture industry as well as mariculture industry in China. Several suggestions are put forward as follows: to stabilize the capture output and promote the whole artificial cultivation of tuna; to strengthen the introduction of technology and scientific and technological investment to promote the upgrading and transformation of the industry; and to set up development strategies and guide the industrial upgrading model lead by international and domestic double cycles.