MONTEREY, Calif. — Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. In Asia, it is an especially critical milestone as China, South Korea and many Southeast Asian countries recall their struggle against the Japanese invasions, valuing peace all the more today. Time is supposed to heal wounds, but Asia's two great powers, China and Japan, still live in cold peace.
The immediate postwar era set China and Japan on a course of hostility on opposite sides of the Cold War. The San Francisco Peace Treaty was concluded without the participation of the People's Republic of China, and Tokyo's recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek put Sino-Japanese relations in a deep freeze.
The resumption of diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Beijing in September 1972 marked the beginning of two decades of what both Chinese and Japanese analysts call the "golden age" of the bilateral relationship. Economic, social, and cultural contacts quickly expanded. Nurtured by the older generation of leaders such as Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Kakuei Tanaka and Masayoshi Ohira, China and Japan strengthened their political alignment against the perceived Soviet threat and "hegemonism."