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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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

Considering the relations between Japan and mainland China from 1952 to 1972, it is possible to say that there were "twenty lost years" in East Asian regional politics, because of no official diplomatic relations between Japan and China, which have been the two biggest powers of East Asia. The research question of this study is how the relations between the two countries developed in this process, when the political power in Japan did not prefer recognizing the communist regime in mainland China instead of its nationalist counterpart in Taiwan due to the Cold War political conjuncture. Accordingly, in this study, the period between 1952-1972 was examined in terms of economic diplomacy. Economics was perhaps the only factor that kept the people of the two countries dependent on each other. Informal and individual initiatives and businesses established during this period, which were sometimes openly supported by politicians behind closed doors, ensured that the threads were never broken in Sino-Japanese relations. In this context, the names, Takasaki Tatsunosuke in Japan and Liao Chengzhi in China, stood out. [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]

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]

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]

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]

For more than two decades, China and Japan have worked to eliminate the chemical weapons that Japan abandoned in China at the end of World War II. The process has involved numerous challenges, such as excavating corroded munitions that had been buried in the city of Beian along with sensitive explosives; working in the aftermath of an accident that sickened more than 40 people in Qiqihar; establishing innovative destruction technologies in Nanjing; and, at Haerbaling Mountain, embarking on the clean-up of the largest burial site for abandoned chemical weapons in China. Though bilateral tensions have sometimes strained the destruction process, Sino-Japanese cooperation has ultimately provided a useful model for nations elsewhere engaged in the disposal of abandoned chemical weapons. [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]

A large literature within the field of international relations has now explored both how emotions can shape political perceptions and behavior and how international actors may seek to manipulate, harness, or deploy emotions and emotional displays for political ends. Less attention, however, has been paid to how political struggles can also center upon issues of who can or should feel what emotion and whose feelings matter. Precisely, we theorize a distributive politics of emotion that can manifest in three general forms, all of which have their own properties and logics of contestation. The first centers on emotional obligations, understood as an actor's duties to feel and express specific emotions. The second concerns emotional entitlements, or the rights an actor enjoys to either feel or not feel certain emotions. And the third involves hierarchies of emotional deference, that is, the varying degrees of priority accorded to different actors' feelings. We illustrate how the politics of emotions can unfold on the international stage by looking at developments in the so-called history problem within Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores I n recent years, the development of bilateral ties between China and Japan has generally maintained a positive momentum, as both countries make joint efforts to manage their remaining disputes and expand cooperation. In order to study this relationship more efficiently in the new era, we need to conduct targeted and systematic analyses in various aspects.

Flight training and mock flights by the British and French aviation missions were widely reported by the newspaper media, which stimulated public airmindedness. The Japanese Navy arsenal and aviation industry under contracts with the Army achieved indigenization of aircraft designs and domestic production beyond all expectations of the suppliers who wanted to place Japan as a subordinate position. However, the French and British sources Melzer refers exposes those suppliers did not provide their empirical aircraft design know-how to put Japan in a dependent position. [Extracted from the article]

The article assesses the decline and reemergence of Asian regional cooperation discourse and the role of China in regional cooperation. Among the factors that cause disturbance to regional cooperation are the Indo-Pacific strategy of major powers and deterioration of China-U.S. relations. The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian regional cooperation is described. Also noted are the principles of the Chinese participation in Asian regional cooperation including openness and inclusiveness.

The article examines the global strategy of China in the 21st century. The strategic thinking of the Communist Party of China (CPC) central leadership is said to be focused on establishing key diplomacy with national characteristics. It mentions the aim of the Chinese strategy to meet the growing needs of Chinese people for a better life. Also noted is the intention of China to be a builder of world peace, contribute to global development, and defend the international order.

We conducted sentiment classification for news reports during the COVID-19 pandemic on Sino-Japanese relations from Chinese and Japanese media. Based on the Word2vec and Dynamic Topic Models, we analyzed the macroscopic dimension of theme distribution and the semantic change process of "Sino-Japanese" related words. The results indicate that Chinese media reports are mainly neutral, but Japanese ones are mainly negative. The meaning of the terms related to "Sino-Japanese" has not changed significantly, but there are minor differences in the content of reports on the same subject in different periods. During Suga's administration, the overall stability of Sino-Japanese relations and the continued advancement of pragmatic cooperation are expected to continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse, as a constructive power, plays a significant role in world politics. Rather than focusing on the formation or transformation of a single discourse, we investigate discourse interaction in the context of multiple competing discourses. Based on the theories of discourse interaction, this study analyses the realist dimension of discourse by examining the territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands and shows how the two countries use discourses to pursue their own security and respective realist interests. This analysis identifies five major controversies in the two countries' discourses on their claims of sovereignty over the islands and demonstrates that each of the two states uses both complementary and competing discourses to strengthen its own stance and delegitimize the other's claims. The theoretical analysis of discourse interaction not only contributes to the growing research on discourse practices in IR, but also has important implications for practice-oriented strategic communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smith skilfully demonstrates that understanding the Chinese political and intellectual contexts within which different conceptions of Asianism were articulated is key to grasping why so many Chinese participated in Asianist discourse, often "in dialogue with Japanese Asianism" (p. 16). $55.00; £44.95; €49.50 ISBN 978-0-6742-6024-5 For a long time, scholarly interest in Asianism (also known as Pan-Asianism) focused on Japan and its role in justifying Japan's empire in East and South-East Asia. I Chinese Asianism i is highly recommended to everyone interested in Chinese intellectual and political history, China-Japan and China-Asia relations. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on major practice of regionalism in Japan's diplomacy has undoubtedly been its proposal and implementation of the "Indo-Pacific" concept. Topics include the term "Indo-Pacific" is not only a spatial concept that combines the respective natural and geographical regions of the two oceans, and Japan has been deeply concerned about China's rise in contrast to the U.S. relative decline.

Although Sino–Japanese relations have been on a recovery course, the deterioration of ties in the first one and a half decades since 2000 should not be forgotten. This article aims to unpack China's perception formation mechanism toward Japan during these turbulent fifteen years by introducing the perspective of strategic perception. Because China's strategic perception toward Japan is largely derived from its overall perceptions of the international system, this article focuses on China's strategic elites to systemically trace the evolution of China's perception of Japan and its policy implications, and to provide a new perception equilibrium that reduced the US factor in the formation of a mutual Sino–Japanese perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the dispute over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, which had been modestly managed with no significant challenge to Japan's effective control, has developed into a new phase, with heightened tensions and a risk of clashes. A notable trend is that the intrusions of China Coast Guard ships into the Japanese contiguous zone and territorial sea off the Senkaku islands have become more frequent and their stay in these waters has become longer. China appears to have shifted its strategy from a regular presence in these waters to the exercise of law enforcement authority in sovereign waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overcoming the Challenges As seen during the pandemic, the notion that middle powers can somehow fill the US-China leadership void is still fairly remote, especially if the United States seeks to directly undermine middle power efforts. Recent European efforts to engage with the United States on reforming the WHO indicate a more realistic assessment of multilateralism than in the past.[65] By forcefully defending rules-based multilateralism, middle powers have the potential to provide a diplomatic alternative to the US-China global competition paradigm that can also be attractive to other international players. Over the past four years, while the Trump administration doubled down on its "America First" foreign policy and Sino-American tensions continued to sharpen, another trend has been equally pertinent: the growing relevance of middle power diplomacy. During the pandemic outbreak in 2020, as the Trump administration further withdrew Washington from multilateral frameworks and as US-China tensions continued to deteriorate, middle powers increasingly saw themselves as confronting an uncomfortable reality in which they could not really depend on either the United States or China to address pressing challenges like COVID-19 and climate change. [Extracted from the article]

The Abe era has produced a significant increase in Japan's geopolitical assertiveness, which is likely to endure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the common view that sees FOIP as a containment strategy against China, this article argues that Japan's FOIP vision seeks to maintain an open and inclusive regional order that incorporates all regional countries into a common framework. To realize such a vision, Japan has strengthened its regional order-building efforts with other regional like-minded countries. However, such efforts have limitations in terms of the resource shortage, legal constraints, and the lack of regional consensus. Unless Japan can address these challenges, the FOIP would end up being a mere utopian dream, rather than a meaningful vision or strategy that can prevent the emergence of a Cold War and maintain an inclusive and rules-based order in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the changing perspectives of Japanese gardens from foreigners, starting with their first encounters with Japanese gardens in the 16th century to the present day. It covers the wave of interest in Japanese gardens during the Japonisme movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which led to the construction of Japanese-style gardens around the world.

The recent development of heritage industries and national heritage promotions in non-Western countries opens a new space for international cooperation and competition in ways that directly link to the power-political relations between states. What motivates these countries to accelerate their efforts to promote their cultural heritage internationally? Are such dynamics different from how cultural heritage is constructed and used in Western countries? This study conceptualises heritage as soft power in terms of culture, values and foreign policies, and by focusing on Japan and China, it examines the ways and motives of using cultural heritage as soft power. Although Japan and China are distinctly different countries, both share a remarkably similar approach to the construction and promotion of national heritage when participating in international heritage platforms. The present study's findings suggest that the promotion of cultural heritage is not only a feature of nation-building and nation-branding but also feeds into global and regional competitions over the attainment of cultural and moral supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the importance of the exchange of foreign correspondents between Japan and China from 1964, during a period of the Cold War when the two countries did not have official ties. Favourable political circumstances in the first half of the 1960s led to a brief window of opportunity for an improved relationship between China and Japan, during which this unique exchange took place. The article attempts to shed light on the significance of the exchange within the broader context of Chinese foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations during the Cold War. Thereby it will clarify the importance of the 1960–1964 period for the longer rapprochement process that would come to fruition in 1972 with the establishment of diplomatic relations. The exchanges of 1964 were seen by participants as an important first step on the way towards official ties. For the Chinese the importance of a relationship with Japan in this period, and, by extension, the importance of the journalist exchange, is shown by the involvement of an unusually high number of journalists from both countries. This article argues that the Chinese leadership's desire for the journalist exchange was rooted in a craving for accurate knowledge about Japan, especially concerning specific political trends and economic developments. This enthusiasm was matched by pro-China politicians in Japan, who also felt that the journalists' presence would enable the Chinese to base their Japan policy on a broader variety of sources, extending beyond information merely gathered through contacts in the Japanese left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the tension between Japan and China is quickly escalating. One of the critical sources of conflict is the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands. The goal of this study is to examine how Japanese citizens develop policy preferences toward China in the issue of the Senkaku Islands. Regarding this matter, it is possible to suggest two scenarios. First, realist concerns among Japanese citizens will boost support for a hawkish approach against China as defending territories is one of the most important concerns for states in the international system. The second scenario prescribes that economic interdependence between Japan and China will undermine the support for a firm approach against China. This perspective is based on the idea that economic interdependence prevents states from going to war with each other. The present research examines the validity of these two competing hypotheses. Statistical analysis relying on the survey data from Japan lends support to the realist perspective. Dissecting the process through which Japanese citizens develop their policy preferences toward China, this study makes an important contribution to the literature of international relations, thus generating critical implications that are highly useful in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late 1939 and early 1940, during the Sino–Japanese War, the Chinese Communist Party entered into a civil war with both the Shanxi provincial warlord, Yan Xishan, and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party. This is usually referred to as the Jin–Xi Incident – the "first anti-Communist upsurge" the Nationalists launched during the war with Japan. However, compared to the "second anti-Communist upsurge" (also known as the New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941) in Anhui Province, which has attracted great scholarly attention both inside and outside China, the Jin–Xi Incident has been to a large extent neglected. Previously, it was regarded as a local crisis for the Chinese Communist Party's united front in Shanxi, but newly available evidence suggests that the incident had wider significance. This article illustrates how the Jin–Xi Incident reshaped resistance activities against the Japanese in both Shanxi and North China more broadly, and laid the foundation for the CCP's victory over the Nationalist Party following the Sino–Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]