The history of contacts between China and Japan

China and Japan share a history of over 2,000 years of contact. Their bilateral relations are characterized by periods of friendly exchange and intertwined history, as well as by mutual friction, conflict, and war. This chapter reviews the history of contacts between China and Japan. During most periods of ancient times, China and Japan maintained close and stable relations, albeit punctuated by short periods of conflict. In modern times, for a period of roughly a century, the two countries experienced a rivalry and periods of war. After World War II, the global Cold War prevented official diplomatic relations between Japan and China, up to the 1970s when the two countries realized normalization of diplomatic relations. Since then, their relations began to develop more comprehensively, leading to over 20 years of friendly cooperation. After the end of the Cold War, China and Japan entered a new period known among the two countries as Cold Politics, Hot Economics. This period featured close and interdependent economic ties but structural political contradictions involving tensions in all aspects related to the recognition of their historical conflicts and territorial disputes.