My Chinese colleagues during my visit to Beijing this past week were jubilant about the so-called new era of Sino-Japanese relations and the upcoming tete-a-tete between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping in March.
They argued that the relationship has stabilized, as evidenced by Xi's coming visit to Japan, by the increased numbers of scholars visiting China, and by their mutual interest in buttressing the multilateral trading system that they view is under attack by U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" doctrine.
What to make of this optimism? Are Japan-China relations structurally in a better place than before Abe and Xi came into power? Are Japan-U.S. relations as strained as Chinese believe they are? What can Beijing do to assuage the concerns about China's rise for Japan and other stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific?