Nowadays, China is not as bound to its past precondition for developing the Sino-Japanese relationship, which was to settle the historical issues between them. The Japanese Government has apologized several times for the atrocities it committed in China during World War II. But this does not mean the two countries have completely reconciled. Without such reconciliation, historical issues will remain sensitive to the Chinese people. Japanese of younger generations have difficulty understanding this sensitivity because they did not live the history.

How to respond to China's peaceful growth is a new topic to Japan. Information from Japanese media reflects the Japanese public's complicated and varied psychological reactions. During his visit, Aso said that he believes China's economic development created opportunities for the international community, including Japan. He said Japan had observed China's peaceful development strategy and its confidence in realizing common peace and prosperity in the world, and looked forward to seeing China's corresponding activities. He claimed that neither Japan nor China would become giant military powers or pose a threat to one another. Instead, they should make joint efforts for peace and development, which was also what the international community expected of them, he said. Most Chinese media considered Aso's words a dismissal of the "China threat" theory, but what Aso actually stressed is global expectations for the two countries. Some Japanese feel unbalanced by China's rapid development, but at the same time they recognize that China still faces serious problems in its economic development, such as environmental problems and wide gaps between the rich and the poor as well as those between urban and rural areas. Some Japanese still look down their noses at China. Japanese media also like to point out China's faults, to prove Japan is in a much better position.

As some Japanese diplomats have pointed out, both countries should pay attention to controlling their nationalistic tendencies, which could be a big obstacle to developing bilateral ties. Nationalism in one country can easily stoke nationalism in the other.

The sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyu Islands and the oil fields beneath them could also threaten healthy ties between China and Japan. The two countries' wisdom will be tested as they try to balance the urgent need to exploit ocean resources with their competing territorial claims.

During their meetings, Chinese and Japanese leaders discussed the poisoned dumpling issue that made headlines in early 2008. At the time, the issue reflected the lack of understanding between the Chinese and Japanese people. After being excessively reported and exaggerated in Japan, the dumpling issue came to symbolize unsafe products imported from China. It caused China's favorability rating among Japanese citizens to decline. Japanese experts confirmed the sanitation conditions of Chinese food plants, finding some to be superior to food processing factories in Japan. Statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also showed that Chinese foods are of better quality than those imported from the United States. The giant volume of food imports from China gives rise to more cases about Chinese food quality, but it also shows the close food trade relations between the two countries. Nonetheless, China and Japan need to establish a mechanism to prevent issues from hurting the bilateral relations.

Portfolio

The most outstanding achievements of Aso's visit to China were in three fields: bilateral economic cooperation; energy saving, environmental protection and climate change; and people-to-people exchanges.

Leaders of the two countries discussed how to jointly deal with thefinancial crisis. They also exchanged views on opposing trade protectionism, strengthening international finance monitoring and pushing through international financial reform. The two sides also agreedto restart high-level economic dialogue on bilateral economic cooperation. Moreover, they moved to open charter flights between Tokyo and Beijing. The two sides will strengthen their cooperation undermechanisms like the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN+3 Summit so asto promote peace, stability and development in Asia.

On the environment, the two sides will launch new programs onenergy-saving, environmental protection, extreme weather control andclimate change, like purifying polluted lakes and improving energy efficiency at power plants. China and Japan will deepen their cooperationthrough more than 500 environmental programs.

The two sides paid more attention to people-to-people exchanges, especially between young people. Aso also suggested setting up aJapan-China future leadership dialogue mechanism.

Moreover, leaders of the two countries exchanged views on globalissues like influenza A/H1N1, the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsulaand nonproliferation.