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"Felt understanding" is a crucial determinant of positive interpersonal and intergroup relationships. However, the question of why felt understanding shapes intergroup relations has been neglected. In a pre-registered test of the process in intergroup relations with a sample from East Asia, we manipulated felt understanding (understood versus misunderstood by an outgroup) in an experimental study (N = 476). The results supported the expectation that felt understanding would lead to a more positive intergroup orientation and action intention. The results of parallel mediation analyses showed that felt understanding indirectly predicted intergroup outcomes through felt positive regard, intergroup overlap, and outgroup stereotypes. Furthermore, the results of post-hoc sequential mediation analyses indicated that felt understanding indirectly predicted intergroup outcomes sequentially through felt positive regard and intergroup overlap, followed by outgroup stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 2010s, Japan has said publicly that it will provide foreign assistance to protect its national interest. A systematic text analysis reveals, however, that Japan had announced this objective as far back as 1969. From the 1970s through the 1990s, the connection of aid to the national interest was indirect and long-term, with the belief that global stability would lead to prosperity. In the 2000s, the suspension of aid to China and the reconstruction of Iraq became major topics of discussion. In recent years, securing the national interest through aid has diverged from the mercantilist approach of the past, which revitalized the Japanese economy. The presence of China as a competitor for infrastructure aid in Asia is the primary reason Japan has emphasized the national interest in its aid policy. The data demonstrate that Japan's actual aid allocation behavior has been significantly influenced by its emphasis on the national interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the "Annual Report of Statistics on Japanese Nationals Overseas," the number of Japanese permanent residents overseas is increasing, while the number of long-term residents is declining. In 2023, there were 574,727 permanent residents, accounting for 44.4% of Japanese nationals overseas. The number of Japanese residents in Asia, particularly in China, has been decreasing, while the number in Oceania, mainly Australia, has been steadily increasing. The United States, Australia, and Canada have the highest number of Japanese permanent residents overseas. The report also provides economic indicators for Japan from 2016 to 2024, showing fluctuations in cash salary, job openings, unemployment rate, M2 rate, balance of payments, exchange rate, trade balance, and foreign trade statistics. These figures should be interpreted in the context of broader economic trends. [Extracted from the article]

The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is generally analysed as a Sino-Japanese competition over material and strategic interests, regional preponderance, and nationalistic symbolism. Yet, such explanations cannot fully explain the endurance of the conflict and overlook its origin in the period leading up to the UN's derecognition of Taiwan's sovereignty in 1971. Drawing on the concept of ontological security, defined as 'security of the self', we contend that it was the looming loss of its sovereign self that prompted Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC) to assert itself as the true defender of Chinese interests by laying claim to the islands. This caused anxiety in China (People's Republic of China, PRC), which had to follow suit in order to secure its own sovereign self. China thus inherited the conflict with Japan when it took over the 'true China' mantle upon its entry to the UN in 1971. Extant explanations overlook the important factor of inter-Chinese competition over sovereign selfhood. In developing this argument, the article makes two contributions. First, it draws attention to a much-overlooked early phase of the dispute, and shows how the same dynamics of ROC–PRC status competition continue to inform the dispute between China and Japan today. Second, it contributes to the literature on ontological security by conceptualising the 'self' as sovereign state personhood, thereby further clarifying the distinction between self and identity, and highlighting the relational effects of ontological security-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heavy military attack and colonial domination during the successive Japanese invasion wars hit the Chinese traditional culture and people the hardest and wreaked havoc on cultural relics, causing a catastrophic and irremediable loss to society. The topic of restitution of looted Chinese cultural relics during these wars arose owing to the long-pending historical issues between China and Japan. However, this issue has never attracted significant attention from the international community. Applying empirical analysis and drawing on the case study, this paper primarily focuses on two typical representative cases of the recovery of looted Chinese cultural relics from Japan, which triggered three significant issues to be addressed: the legal analysis of two recovery cases through litigation and non-litigation relief; proving the legality concerning different ownership rights of the Chinese government and individuals seeking to recover state-owned and privately-owned cultural relics; exploring the legal grounds for recovering state-owned and privately-owned cultural relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a transnational network of advocates for Kampō (traditional) medicine in Japan, occupied China, and Manchukuo during the Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945), shedding new light on collaborationism, Asianism, and the modernization of traditional medicine in East Asia. In the 1930s, despite deteriorating Sino-Japanese relations, the Kampō revival movement in Japan joined forces with the struggle to preserve traditional medicine in China. In 1938, the Association of East Asian Medicine was founded in Japan, gathering together Chinese, Korean, and Japanese advocates under the banner of 'East Asian medicine'. This article delineates the evolution of what I call 'medical Asianism' and how it was institutionalized in different parts of the Japanese empire. Participants in this network differed in their priorities and ideological commitments, yet they tactfully utilized the Japanese imperial infrastructure and wartime circumstances to promote traditional medicine. Their work laid important intellectual and institutional foundations for the postwar development of traditional medicine across East Asia. This study also contributes to a more nuanced understandings of collaborationism. The type of collaboration examined in this article was preceded by a long history of intellectual exchange, based on a shared body of knowledge and morals, motivated by mutual empathy, and for a cause that was much valued in postwar Asia. As a result, unlike most Chinese collaborators who were prosecuted as 'traitors', protagonists in this study continued to prosper professionally and became valuable assets in the postwar rebuilding of Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how the history of foreign invasion affects consumers' country-of-origin choices in the context of the Chinese automotive market. We study how the history of foreign invasion affects consumers' country-of-origin choices in the context of the Chinese automotive market. Our research design exploits two natural experiments: (i) the Imperial Japanese Army's Continental Cross-Through Operation in 1944 in China, which created local variations in war losses and casualties, and (ii) the China–Japan conflict over the sovereignty disputes in 2012 that renewed the salience of the history of the Japanese invasion. Using a discrete choice model, we find that, after the 2012 conflict, the history of invasion has a negative effect on the brand preference of Japanese cars and a positive effect on Chinese cars. The effects translate to a 6.8% decline and 5.3% increase in the sales of Japanese and Chinese cars in invaded counties compared with neighboring noninvaded counties despite similar pretrends. Both effects persisted for more than 24 months. The heterogeneous effects show rich managerial implications: the history effects are stronger for higher priced and larger cars as well as more recognizably Japanese or Chinese cars. Creating local independent brands helps foreign brands to take advantage of the history effect. We also explore the mechanism and find supporting evidence for memory transmission as well as the role of local protests as a mediator of the history effect. History: K. Sudhir served as the senior editor. Funding: This work was supported by the University of Toronto (Rotman Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Institution Grant) and the Ministry of Education in Singapore (the Academic Research Fund Tier 1) [Grant R-253-000-147-133]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.1440. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses two separate topics related to East Asian history. The first topic focuses on a sourcebook on the Imjin War, which was compiled by a Japanese historian named Kitajima. The sourcebook contains a collection of historical documents from Japan, Korea, and China, providing valuable insights into the war. However, the sourcebook has some shortcomings, including typographical errors, a lack of an index, and questionable selection criteria for the historical documents. The second topic examines the economic relationship between Joseon Korea and the Qing Dynasty, specifically through the Junggang border market. The article highlights the changes and dynamics of the market, as well as the trade relationships between Korea, Japan, and the Qing Empire. The study emphasizes the need for collaborative research among scholars from different countries to gain a comprehensive understanding of the war and trade relationships in East Asia. [Extracted from the article]

Feudal Japan was one of the countries within the cultural space of Chinese characters and maintained a "tributary diplomacy" relationship with China. However, although it was part of the Chinese tribute system, Japan was not a typical tributary state like Korea or Vietnam at that time. Therefore, Japan's tribute activities with China, in addition to the similarities inherent in this activity, also had many unique characteristics. This article places Japan's tribute activities in the context of the region and compares them with China's tribute activities of Korea and Vietnam at the time to draw out similarities and differences. At the same time, the article derives the characteristics and essence of Japan's tribute activities at that time, contributing to an understanding of the nature of Japan–China relations in the past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore whether international disputes harm commerce by galvanizing consumer boycotts of foreign products. Boycotts increase the social penalty of owning goods associated with a foreign adversary, offsetting individual incentives to free ride or discount the utility of participation. By harming international commerce, boycotts can help reveal information about resolve and avoid more costly forms of conflict. Using administrative data on the universe of new passenger vehicle registration records in China from 2009 to 2015, we demonstrate that consumer boycotts that arose amid tensions between China and Japan over a territorial dispute in 2012 had significant and persistent effects on vehicle sales, especially in cities that witnessed anti-Japanese street demonstrations. The market share of Japanese brands dropped substantially during and after the boycott with long lasting effects. Our analysis provides concrete evidence of the short- and long-term impacts of international tensions on economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Relations (IR) scholars have taken China's presumed hegemony in pre-modern East Asia as an ideal case to 'undermine' the field's Eurocentrism. If Eurocentric IR is guilty of 'getting Asia wrong', do students of historical Asia 'get Asia right'? Analysts should avoid exotifying differences between the West and the East and 'exchanging Eurocentrism for Sinocentrism'. This article tries to 'get Asia [more] right' by 'disaggregating' and then 'reassembling' taken-for-granted concepts by time, space, and relationality. When 'Confucianism' is understood to justify both war and peace in competition with other thoughts, it does not dictate peace among East Asian states or conflicts across the Confucian–nomadic divide. When 'China' is unpacked, it does not sit on top of an Asian hierarchy. When Korea's, Vietnam's, and Japan's views of their relations with China are examined rather than presumed, cultural legitimacy is thinned out. When 'Asia' is broadened to cover webs of relations beyond East Asia to Central Asia, Confucianism recedes in centrality and pan-Asian phenomena including Buddhism and the steppe tradition come to the fore. The article concludes that a better challenge to Eurocentrism is not to search for cultural differences but to locate Eurasian similarities that erase European superiority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China's Capitalist Ascent" by Jason M. Kelly explores the complex relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and capitalist countries during the period from the Second Sino-Japanese War to the later years of Mao Zedong's rule. The book reveals that China cultivated trade relations with capitalist countries abroad while promoting anti-capitalist revolutions domestically. It discusses the CCP's use of colonial Hong Kong as a trading hub, the impact of the Korean War on trade, and the consequences of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution on trade. The book is based on extensive research using Chinese and foreign archives. It provides valuable insights into the history of Mao-era China's foreign relations and economy. [Extracted from the article]

Much has been written on how an increasingly assertive China has sought to challenge the incumbent players in the global and regional arenas. Japan, as East Asia's regional hegemon, is said to be throwing its weight behind the US because it has much to lose in an era of China rising. Nevertheless, how much of this resembles reality? This article seeks to unpack some commonly held assumptions, focusing on the political/security as well as economic choices facing Japan. It argues that the Japanese have seemingly forged a rather strong alignment with the US in the sphere of politics/security, often with an eye to limit the influence of China. However, the situation is less clear cut when it comes to opportunities and challenges in the economic realm. Indeed, in some of Japan's most prominent industries, one observes complementarity effects and close interdependence with the Chinese economy. These findings illustrate that China-Japan competition is more complex than commonly portrayed, in addition to raising questions about the complicating effects that economic interdependence can have in a nation's "strategic" policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on studying the impact of the establishment of free trade zones on the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) in China's A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2019. The research explores how free trade zones promote TFP through enterprise innovation and resource allocation, particularly emphasizing the significant role of state-owned enterprises in innovation and their long-term positive impact on TFP.

In March 1940, leaders of the Chongqing night-soil trade union sent a petition to the governor of China's Sichuan province to contest health officials' attempts to seize the night-soil industry. Cleanliness in Chongqing, the national capital during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), held profound significance for China's hygienic modernity, but Nationalist authorities failed to ensure it. On their part, the petitioners failed to recognize the centrality of odour in health officials' agenda. These joint failures left the wartime capital mired in muck. This article employs microhistorical analysis of the 1940 petition to highlight a significant shift in olfactory sensibility. Comparison with a similar instance in nearby Hankou eleven years later, when Communist cadres succeeded in breaking the local night-soil gang, elucidates key distinctions between the Nationalist and Communist states. The conclusion considers what might be possible if we imagine using night soil to fertilize soils not as an anti-modern practice but as a sustainable means of processing waste and caring for our planet. To regain a portion of night soil's many values, we must conquer the obstacles of disease transmission and disgust. The former is a technical problem for which solutions already exist; the latter is a formidable social problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1955, Japan's Matsuyama Ballet staged the first ballet adaptation of the Chinese land reform drama The White-Haired Girl in Tokyo , laying the foundation for Chinese revolutionary ballet. This is the first study in English to explore the Matsuyama Ballet production in detail. Employing Chinese-language sources from the production's 1958 tour to China, this article explores the historical making, performance, and reception of the Matsuyama Ballet's The White-Haired Girl and situates it in the context of Sino-Japanese relations during the 1950s. The article argues that the production resulted from a longer history of interactions between Japan, China, and the Soviet Union and that its interpretation of The White-Haired Girl story served as a bridge between the 1950 Chinese feature film and the 1971 Chinese ballet film. It also argues that Chinese responses to the production demonstrate significant differences between Japanese and Chinese discourses about Sino-Japanese friendship in the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wei Wu's book, "Esoteric Buddhism in China: Engaging Japanese and Tibetan Traditions, 1912–1949," explores the spread and reception of Tibetan Buddhism in Republican China. The author highlights the diverse perspectives within Chinese society towards this religious tradition, including both support and criticism. Wu also examines how important figures in Chinese Buddhism found value in Tibetan Buddhism's systematic teachings and practices. The book draws from a range of sources, including speeches, articles, letters, and interviews, providing a balanced analysis of the topic. However, it could have given more emphasis to the political tensions between Tibet and China during this period. [Extracted from the article]

In an effort to counteract China's maritime expansionism, Japan has endeavoured to be a prominent player in the South China Sea dispute over the past decade. While previous studies have emphasized the limitations of Japan's South China Sea policy, one question still remains: to what extent has Japan's policy been successful? By utilizing Baldwin's analytical framework for foreign policy evaluation--which takes into account factors such as stakes, effectiveness and costs--this article argues that Japan's policy has achieved moderate success. Despite its limitations, Japan's policy has been relatively successful as it helps to maintain America's military presence in the region, and creates normative and diplomatic obstacles for China's activities in the South China Sea without damaging Sino-Japanese relations. Additionally, Japan's policy helps uphold the rules-based order by strengthening the maritime law enforcement capabilities of selected Southeast Asian states. The costs of the policy to Japan are acceptable, particularly given that it has little impact on the waters surrounding the country. Conversely, the policy imposes increased material, normative and time costs on China. Given China's uncompromising historical and security position in the South China Sea, the qualified success of Japan's policy should be acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Japan is commonly regarded as a strong proponent of the existing liberal international order championed by the US in the Indo-Pacific, sometimes it has been half-hearted in opposing a Sino-centric order and been rather supportive of Chinese diplomacy. In particular, it has to some degree supported the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) implemented by Beijing, effectively offered its endorsement to the international legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) without problematizing human rights issues, and severely restricted the enhancement of its own defense capabilities. These policies have been shaped by pro-China individuals and groups who hold privileged positions inside the government, and their privileged positions have been determined by haphazard domestic political factors which have little to do with Sino-Japanese relations. This means that, although on the surface Japan may seem to have rationally calculated its international strategic interests and implemented hedging as a coherent strategy amid Sino-US rivalries, its implementation of what seems to be a hedging strategy has actually been incidental. Its policy has turned out to resemble what has been regarded by International Relations (IR) theorists as a hedging strategy, due to haphazard domestic political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the structure of the political framework that defines the relationship between Japan and China? In the early 2000s, a little before the thirtieth-year anniversary of normalization of the bilateral relationship, experts from the two countries argued over the importance of issues regarding history in the framework of bilateral relations. By discussing the formation of the debate on the so-called "1972 system," and its background and subsequent development, this article indicates that China's argument is transforming from rational to more nationalistic. The two consistent features of China's strategic theory toward Japan are (1) China shares with Japan an understanding of where the issues in Sino-Japanese relations lie; and (2) China differs in many respects from Japan in its political interpretation of the issues and seeks setbacks from Japan in a manner consistent with guiding domestic public opinion in China. This implies that Japan and China can potentially share a common understanding of the issues at stake, despite political friction on the surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the timeline of the China-Japan relations as of September-December 2022 including Yomiuri poll reports that 81 percent of respondents view China as a threat; 15 percent do not; fuel required for ammunition storage facilities on Nansei Island; and China's semiconductor industry.

This preliminary study focuses on the change in the regional security order caused by the U.S.-China competition and its impact on South Korea-Japan relations. The ongoing U.S.-China relations has expanded beyond the discussion of cooperation and competition between existing and emerging powers, as well as the debate over the influence and resilience of the U.S.-led liberal international order. The significance of the U.S.-China competition in the security order in East Asia depends on whether China will accept the existing U.S.-led bilateral alliance system and take a status quo attitude. As a result, the U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan, need to respond sensitively to the changing nature of the security order. In this vein, this study explains the East Asian security order as elements of power structure, institutions, and actors. In addition, it explains the emergence of China as a new hegemonic power due to the U.S.-China competition, the hub-and-spokes system changes according to the U.S. rebalancing policy, and the emergence of Trumpism. Through this, the author argues two claims. First, the change in U.S.-China relations has led to different expectations between Seoul and Tokyo for cooperation with the U.S., which has hindered bilateral cooperation between them. Second, divergent views on China also hinder South Korea-Japan cooperation. Through the Senkaku dispute between Japan and China and the missile deployment dispute between South Korea and China, the two countries later showed different directions in their policy toward China. In the current competitive situation, restrictions on South Korea-Japan relations are inevitable. However, if the opportunity to promote security cooperation between South Korea and Japan is sought, it will be able to show the cooperation of middle power countries that can develop the security order to mitigate the intensity of U.S.-China competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews Japan-China private trade from the 1950s to the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China in 1972. Under the Cold War in East Asia, private actors were responsible for trade and business exchanges on behalf of the government in Japan-China relations. Both Japan and China promoted private trade with different political agendas. Japan's objective was to expand Japan-China exchanges with the concept of separation of politics and economics, while China used private trade as a strategic tool to attract Japanese public opinion toward China. This article will clarify how the intentions of the two countries affected private trade, and how private trade expanded as various trade groups competed with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the same time, if one considers the crucial international roles played by the United States, Japan, and China, one could argue that Japan's foreign policy contributed to the structure of East Asian international relations. However, Japan and the United States were late in recognizing the PRC. [Extracted from the article]

Summary: In most of the scholarship on diplomacy, whether historical or contemporary, the governmental elite-based perspective has consistently dominated. The societisation of diplomacy is the process of legitimisation of foreign policy deliberations between state and society, both domestically and internationally. This article argues that there are two types of societisation: internal and external. It defines the former as a dynamic political communication process comprising diplomatic policy deliberation and legitimisation between state and society in a domestic context. The internal dimension is yet to receive sufficient academic and practical attention. This article fills the gap in the literature on the internal societisation of diplomacy through an empirical case study of Japan's diplomacy towards China. It shows that the unsuccessful internal societisation of diplomacy has had moderating effects on Japan's diplomacy towards China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study divided the 1910s and the 1940s into the Beijing government period, the Nanjing Nationalist government period, and the Sino-Japanese War period, and analyzed Japanese legal scholars' perceptions of modern Chinese law. By the 1940s, various deficiencies in China's legal system were pointed out in Japanese legal academia, although it was also recognized that China had enacted the latest code. Despite the lack of evidence based on sufficient observation, the tendency to emphasize the difficulty of operating the new law did not change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But at the same time, Japan would neither explicitly include nor explicitly exclude the possibility of Japan providing at least rear-area support for US military operations during a Taiwan contingency, as well as permitting US use of its military assets in Japan for the defense of Taiwan. Since the PRC did not exist at the time of the Cairo Declaration and since Japan recognized the PRC government as the sole legal Government of China in 1972, Japan appeared to obliquely accept that Taiwan was part of China. In response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's August 2022 visit to Taiwan, Chinese missile firings, with some landing in Japan's claimed exclusive economic zone (EEZ), vividly confirmed for many Japanese the notion that "a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency.". [Extracted from the article]

China's increasingly active economic diplomacy in recent years has often been deeply linked to its geostrategic interests. Japan is said to be watching this development with alarm. Analysts have often claimed that this has resulted in Sino-Japanese rivalry, where the Japanese see any gains made by China in zero-sum terms, and make concerted efforts to counter China's growing influence. This article, however, is critical of such views. While elements of rivalry may indeed be visible in some aspects of Sino-Japanese relations, it would be premature to apply this perspective to economic statecraft, which is inherently multifaceted. This article claims that too much attention has been paid to the strategic aspects of Chinese economic statecraft at the expense of economic/commercial ones that could foster cooperative relations between Beijing and Tokyo. It argues that Japan does not hold a monolithic view that Chinese diplomatic activities in the economic realm are an axiomatic threat to Japanese security interests, and it remains premature to say that Japan and China are 'rivals' in the realm of economic statecraft. Future analysis in this area needs to pay greater attention to the complicating effects that economic interdependence can have in strategic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes the argument that nontraditional security (NTS) diplomacy can provide the essential window of opportunity for China and Japan to move beyond traditional diplomatic history. However, NTS issues have become dominant in reforming bilateral relations between China and Japan, though there is no fixed edge in nontraditional security. To reveal, it explores the NTS diplomacy with the importance of nontraditional security issues as substance for the expansion and development of two leading economies. The non-military and transboundary character of NTS threats have constrained courtiers to pursue more substantial levels of security integration. This study argues that the significance of NTS diplomacy is twofold; first, it avoids sensitive historical hostilities and finds common ground for cooperation on NTS threats that traditional approach of diplomacy apparently is unable to envisage. Second, security interdependence approach can turn traditional diplomatic relations of China and Japan into a more conciliatory and prominent path. While NTS threats like natural disasters, environment degradation, and economy crisis have been taken as case studies to provide empirical evidence and significant opportunities for both rival states. This article, to some extent, describes the dynamic between traditional, nontraditional, and nontraditional security diplomacy through China-Japan relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tone of China-Japan relations became more alarmist on both sides with long-anticipated plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations still clouded with uncertainty. Several related events were canceled or postponed sine die. Internationally, Prime Minister Kishida was exceptionally active, attending meetings of the Quad, the G7, NATO, and Shangri-La Dialogue, where he delivered the keynote address. A common theme was attention to a Free and Open Pacific (FOIP) and the need for stability in the region, both of which Beijing sees as intended to constrain China. At NATO, Kishida met with US and South Korean representatives for their first trilateral meeting in nearly five years and suggested the possibility of joint military exercises. Meanwhile, China continued pressure on Taiwan and the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Although Foreign Minister Wang Yi and State Councillor Yang Jieqi were active internationally, Xi Jinping himself has not ventured outside the Chinese mainland since January 2020 save for a brief, tightly controlled visit to Hong Kong, which is unquestionably part of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical media studies have long understood the role of the media in not just illuminating disputes between nations but in inflaming them. The media can be used to inform or distort the background and causes of conflict and arouse public opinion. This article surveys the potentially calamitous decline of public perceptions in China and Japan toward the other and asks if the media is a monitor of this decline or a party to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the war in Ukraine becomes protracted, there is discourse comparing China and Russia as tyrannical states versus states based on the principles of democracy. However, while China appears to support Russia's opposition to NATO's eastward expansion, it abstained from voting on the resolution condemning Russia in the UN General Assembly, and, at the same time, China has shown consideration for Ukraine by saying that it values sovereignty and that Ukraine is no exception. China's response seems by no means simple. This article analyzes China's views of the war in Ukraine with a focus on domestic policy options in 2022, a special year of personnel changes and political "special appointments," while attempting to deal with an increase in Novel Coronavirus cases and reaching the government's growth target. It then describes the main principles of Chinese diplomacy and its vision of the world. Internationally, China and Russia have maintained a strong relationship even during the war in Ukraine but it is difficult to agree that China and Russia are monolithic. Finally, the article discusses how Japan-China relations have been affected and some of the challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region that have been revealed by the war in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China and Japan have fought against the epidemic through high-level contacts, donation and so on. The Chinese proverb "mountains and rivers on foreign land, wind and moon under the same sky" gave warmth of friendship to the bilateral relations. However, since Yoshihide Suga won the election, the Sino-Japanese relations have taken a worsening turn. The current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida further takes counterbalancing China as top priority. The "anti-COVID-19 diplomacy" in 2020 had very limited improvement on Sino-Japanese relations. It is clear that since the implementation of the U.S. strategic competition policy against China, Japan, without hesitation, turns to the "national interest theory" and "international contribution theory" by positioning to counterbalance China. Japan has become one of the few Asian countries that have completely sided with US in the China–US strategic competition. Since the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, the principle of "good-neighborhood" has been totally replaced by the seemingly determined approach of "counterbalance" proposed by Japanese politicians. Japan has gone beyond the issue of its neighboring areas, trying to assist the United States' strategic containment of China, which has added a new variable to China's neighboring diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship suggests that the thawing of diplomatic relations between China and Japan has caused a readjustment of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative and Tokyo's Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision towards an emerging complementarity. Through careful process-tracking, elite interviews, and analysis of Chinese and Japanese primary sources, this article instead demonstrates how, outside of the East Asian spotlight, Sino-Japanese geo-economic competition continues in South Asia and the Mekong subregion, fueled by power politics and a mutual distrust of each other's initiatives. On the basis of this evidence, this article qualifies Sino-Japanese interactions as a quest and denial for spheres of influence, whereas the Japanese government aims at denying Chinese spheres of influence. In doing so, this article highlights how Japanese proactivism from Sri Lanka to Thailand, via infrastructure and government financing, has become a driver of growing non-traditional security cooperation with India, the U.S., and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional arguments understand history-related disputes between Japan and China to be a result of identity politics that revolve around very different interpretations over the historical legacies of WW II. This article challenges these conventional arguments. It shows that history-related disputes between the two sides have less to do with identity politics than with efforts by the Chinese government to deflect domestic discontent over its 1972 decision to waive reparations claims against Japan in return for the Japanese government apologizing for Japan's actions in WW II. But this tacit arrangement, "the 1972 System," began to fall apart in the early 1980s. This is because it failed to establish a clear institutional framework that could provide historical justice to Chinese citizens for the actions of the Japanese military in China, embroiled the Chinese government in a chronic legitimacy deficit that can only be mitigated if Japan keeps apologizing, and perpetuated Japan's victimizer identity, which the Japanese public has found emotionally unacceptable. The result is the transformation of what originally was a domestic controversy in China over historical justice into a diplomatic dispute with Japan over historical understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the early 1950s to the early 1970s, Japan adhered to a policy of "Securing Taiwan" to safeguard its national interests and security. This policy was intended to protect Taiwan from China's annexation and keep it in the Western bloc. In this article, I illustrate how conservatives in Japan pursued the policy both before and after its normalisation of diplomatic ties with Mainland China in the early 1970s. After the signing of the San Francisco Treaty in 1951, some in Japan began looking for opportunities to convince the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan to give up its claim to represent all of China and accept its true status as the ruler of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. Securing Taiwan became one of Japan's strategic goals and entailed separating politics from the economy in its foreign policy towards China. When Sino–Japanese diplomatic relations were restored in 1972, Japan denied the claim of Taiwan (the Republic of China) to represent all of China by recognising the Mainland (the People's Republic of China). At the same time, Japan demanded that China recognise Japan's right to maintain economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan, so that the Securing Taiwan policy could be continued in the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attitude of France towards the Sino-Japanese War that started in 1937 has given rise to various judgments. Officially neutral, France is often presented as having taken, at least morally, a favorable attitude toward China. Yet the French government had officially prohibited the transit of war materiel en route to China across the Indochinese border. This issue became increasingly important as the Japanese blockade of China progressed and conditioned the capacity of Chiang Kai-shek's government to continue the fight. The diplomatic archives of the United States, greatly concerned by the situation in China, shed more light on France's policy in East Asia. By comparing historical accounts produced by contemporaries and historians with the diplomatic archives of the United States, this article intends to bring more evidence relating to the issue of French "neutrality" during the Sino-Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]