ABSTRACT
Transforming East Asia’s political economy and impacting on Sino-Japanese relations are at least three factors: the Cold War’s end, the demise of the flying geese pattern of development and the rise of regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). During the halcyon days of the Cold War, Washington, Beijing and Tokyo were de facto allies against Moscow.1 The two Asian neighbors, driven by geopolitical imperatives against the Soviet Union, expediently downplayed their differences over Japan’s past invasion of the Chinese mainland and an appropriate apology from Tokyo. However, with the end of the Cold War and the absence of a common threat, Japan and China are no longer strategic partners and lack the geopolitical incentive to sweep their burden of history under the carpet. Indeed, the past has become a thorn in the flesh of Sino-Japanese relations even in the twenty-first century.
