China and Japan put rivalry aside because of a trade war with the US: “Politics is cold, economically it is very comfortable.”
The rivalry between China and Japan has been put aside for a moment with the visit of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Beijing. “After a period of competition, bilateral relations enter a new phase of coexistence,” he said Friday. That stage is not called friendship: for that, the Sino-Japanese relationship remains historically fraught.
It is a bit strange if your best business relationship never comes to visit. China is Japan’s largest trading partner – accounting for $ 300 million, with the 8 million Chinese tourists who empty the Tokyo shopping centres every year. Nevertheless, since 2011 no Japanese Prime Minister was officially received in Beijing.
Abe finally sat at the table with the Chinese president Xi Jinping, looking for what the Chinese state media call “a stable psychological framework”.