The Communists in China view the invasion of Manchuria & the Mainland by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s as a suffering inflicted on the Chinese people. Horr

The Communists in China view the invasion of Manchuria & the Mainland by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s as a suffering inflicted on the Chinese people. Horrors of the Nanking Massacre of 1937 still haunt them. The fact that Japan has shied away from adequately apologizing, in the view of the CCP, has hindered the progress in the ties.

“It is famously said that the Japanese don't seem to remember anything and the Chinese don't seem to forget anything”.

While the CCP was working on opening up the Chinese economy in 1978, they studied the Japanese model of development. The Communist leadership was impressed with the way Japan had not only recovered from World War II, but also managed to be a manufacturing hub & world's second largest economy. The leadership looked at Japan for investments & technology, something which ran parallel to the political narrative.

Japan still sits in the region China thinks is its region to dominate. Military presence of America in its vicinity has always troubled China. According to the Cold War theory of containment, Japan was deemed as an American off-shoot in Asia-Pacific to guard the first island chain against Communist China.

With the Korean War, America came closer right on the Korean Peninsula, i.e. South Korea. Helping North Korea survive at all costs has always been of strategic importance for Beijing. Japan is looked at with more animosity from Pyongyang than from Beijing. This makes the region very volatile.

Japan and China have been great case studies of how ancient civilizations became modern states. The geography compels the two giants to be in an environment of perpetual insecurities. The burden of History, with its capability of reigniting the horrors, has made sure that the relationship is always in a turmoil filled with mistrust.

China-Japan Relations

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