On March 5, Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, was invited to speak to members of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) for the first time in the organization's history.
The invitation underlined the growing sense of urgency in Japanese business circles that Sino-Japanese relations need more constructive nurturing and positive developments than they have seen in the recent past.
After various ups and downs throughout 2007, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda appeared earlier this year to be building substantial positive momentum in improving the dialogue — that is, until it was revealed in late January that a number of people in Japan had fallen ill from pesticide-tainted "gyoza" meat and vegetable dumplings imported from China.