Sino-Japanese relations: partners and rivals?

Abstract This article examines some of the stresses and strains underlying the development of the current partnership between China and Japan. It shows that the disputes that emerged after the end of the Cold War about the history of Japanese aggression against China (1931–45) that adversely affected relations between the two were less about history as such than about problems of identity within each country and between both countries. It further argues that despite their deepening economic interdependence, it was structural factors that created tension and rivalry between these two great powers of Asia. It was only the coincidence of domestic political changes in both China and Japan in 2006 that provided the opportunity for the new leaders in each country to break the ice between them. Since then it has required purposive and careful management by both sets of leaders to mitigate the divisive tendencies that could once again thrust the relationship into a descending spiral. Finally, it will be argued th...