Recent events have given grist to both optimists and pessimists about the Sino-Japanese relationship. On Nov. 10, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe actually shook hands at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Beijing, prompting Japanese scholar Akio Takahara to call it a “turning point” in the crucial but historically fraught relationship. Then again, on Dec. 13, Xi attended a memorial in the city of Nanjing to mark the 77th anniversary of Japan’s massacre of civilians there, which Xi insisted was aimed at peaceful remembrance but is also likely to stir up already raw feelings among Chinese citizens.
Which is more likely in the near future; detente, or conflict? In this ChinaFile conversation, experts discuss what China and Japan can do to move into a new phase in their relationship.
Allen Carlson, Associate Professor, Cornell University:
There has been a recent spate of reporting that a thaw is taking place in Sino-Japanese relations. I am skeptical about such a claim; relations between the two powers are rarely as bad as portrayed, even when the relationship is deeply strained. So when a warming trend appears to be taking shape, such a perception is based more on an over-estimation of where the two countries stood before it began to unfold than it is on any real world events.
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