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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who met for the first time as leaders in 2014, shook hands, looking down, their sinister expressions.
The two men seemed determined to avoid any hint of the pleasure of meeting at a forum in Beijing
Four years later, Abe is about to receive a much warmer reaction when he will arrive in Beijing on Thursday for his first official visit. In 1965, it was largely thanks to US President Donald Trump.
The unconventional foreign policy of the Trump government on commercial and military alliances has left Tokyo unmoved by US support for its international relations since the early years. end of the Second World War.
With regard to the East China Sea, Beijing is under increasing pressure from the Trump administration and desperately needs diplomatic and economic allies in the region.
"Japan and China are being targeted by the United States," Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, told CNN. "Xi Jinping means to Abe that they are in the same boat."
The Master Card
Beijing and Tokyo have always had very different relationships with Washington – a marginal opponent, the other a close alliance – but the two countries now face similar complaints from the Trump administration.
Trump's disputes with China are well known, given the increasingly serious consequences for the global economy and the diplomatic scene.
Billions of dollars in Chinese products have been US authorities accuse China of widespread theft of intellectual property
In recent months, the dispute has spread beyond economic concerns to encompbad military issues and political, with unsupported badertions of Beijing's intervention in military and political affairs. US Elections
But for Japan, the conflict is more complicated and unexpected. The United States has been a military and diplomatic ally close to Tokyo for more than 70 years.
Abe was the first international leader to meet with Mr. Trump after the 2016 US presidential election.
Despite numerous meetings and a concerted effort of justice. the United States government, the Japanese government has been left hands generally empty.
"All fantasies, as well as the Shinzo-Donald affair, have not really led to any special treatment for Japan, but rather to quite often crude and hostile attitudes Nakano told CNN
Diplomatically, Abe was left in the cold during highly publicized negotiations with North Korea in this year 's talks between Pyongyang, Washington, and Seoul, which was deeply felt in Tokyo.
"Trump's political awareness of trade came out of the 1980s with Japan. If you're looking for consistency, he thinks Japan and South Korea are not fair traders and he stays true to that, "Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at Sydney's Lowy Institute, told CNN
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A long rivalry
Yet, despite the hostility of the United States to bring Beijing and Tokyo closer, the long and painful history of the two countries makes it difficult to achieve lasting and lasting rapprochement.
Relations have been tumultuous since the end.
Progress towards the "normalization" of relationships failed in 2012 after a long-running bickering over a barren set of islands claimed by both China and Japan, public demonstrations and threats of
The dispute over who owned the Diaoyu Islands, known as Senkakus in Japan, caused a rapid cooling of diplomatic relations. This led to the cold encounter between Abe and Xi in 2014.
At the same time, culture The wars around Japan's occupation of China resurfaced and Beijing politicized the atrocities of war while Tokyo nationalists argue that their country should regain its national pride.
The unlikely warming of relations between the two countries began in September 2017, when Abe became the first Japanese leader for 15 years to attend the National Day celebrations organized by the Embbady. from China.
According to experts, Trump insists on trade and security issues. China and Japan are desperate to relax their regional relations. they are looking for allies to help them withstand the American storm.
"China is looking for a friend, which means that they are much more willing to welcome Japan and ignore their serious strategic differences." The same goes for Japan., Said McGregor.
"Very Complementary"
While China Needs Japan's Help to Fight Trade Measures Taken by Trump, Japan Strives to Protect Current liberal economic order in the region, Stephen Nagy, invited to the Japanese Institute of International Affairs, told CNN.
"Their concern is that if relations continue to deteriorate, there will be a US market and a Chinese market (separate, closed) … which at the cost of doing business with Japanese companies, "he said." They do not want that to happen. "
"We must not sit back and remain indifferent to the damage to global trade and the global supply chain," he said. "We should be united to express our strong support for free trade and our opposition to protectionism."
But the growing rapprochement between the two countries does not mean that all the problems between Tokyo and Beijing have been solved,
Last week, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Foreigners have severely reprimanded Abe for sending ritual offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Tokyo Temple that honors a number of convicted war criminals.
"We urge Japan Lu Kang, Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the US president and his policies were coming and going, that deep disagreements were pitting China and Japan against each other. The territory remains a source of division and remains to be solved.
"These underlying, more fundamental issues, will probably be more relevant and influential than the temporary factor that is Trump," said Nakano.
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