Why Japan and China will struggle to end their feud

In 1972, the entire Japanese foreign policy trembled at what Tokyo still calls the "Nixon shock": Richard Nixon's surprise visit to Mao Zedong, which left Japan completely disoriented in the face of a rapprochement between the United States and China. Today, more than fifty years later, history seems to be repeating itself in an updated version. With his visit to Xi Jinping, organized down to the smallest detail, Donald Trump may not have shocked the world like Nixon, but the message for Japan is almost worse: America is once again ready to reshuffle alliances, and Tokyo finds itself, once again, unprepared and isolated. The common idea is that the complicated relationship between Japan and China is the result of ancient grudges or territorial disputes, but the real twist is that it is the instability of the triangle with the United States that makes true peace impossible. When the Americans approach Beijing, Japan feels the ground shake beneath its feet. On May 19, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi flew to South Korea to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. It was not a mission to forge new agreements, but for a much more human reason: to understand together how to interpret the new American mood toward China. Imagine the scene: two allied leaders, both worried that Washington might suddenly change direction, forcing them to navigate blindfolded between two giants. It is no longer just about history or disputed islands in the East China Sea. Behind the scenes, the data shows that trade between Japan and China is worth over $300 billion a year, yet mistrust remains very high, with polls showing that, every year, more than 80% of Japanese people see China as a threat. A little-known detail: Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi is famous at home for her intransigence on security, but also for saying, in a private meeting, "When Washington changes, everything else shifts." This is not just the fear of losing a military guarantee: it is the fear that an embrace between America and China will leave Japan out of the game, forced to choose between autonomy and survival. But there is one aspect that is often ignored: while Tokyo looks suspiciously at Beijing, Japanese society is increasingly dependent on economic ties with China, both for exports and tourism. And mutual distrust is intertwined with the new generations who, on the other hand, meet on university campuses or through tech startups. The real paradox is that the more geopolitics become rigid, the more the daily lives of citizens intertwine between the two countries, creating a strange mixture of rivalry and interdependence. There is a different way of interpreting this tension: not only as a struggle between nationalisms, but as a side effect of the fact that none of the three — China, Japan, and America — really trusts the others enough to sit at a table and change the rules of the game. What if, instead of waiting for the "great reconciliation," the future were made up of an endless series of small adjustments, where no one wins completely but everyone fears losing? After all, true instability arises when yesterday's friend could become tomorrow's adversary's partner. If you thought that the grudges between Japan and China were just ancient history, today it is the fear of being cut off from Washington's decisions that really drives the tension. If this perspective has made you see diplomacy with different eyes, you can indicate it on Lara Notes with I'm In — it's not a simple like, it's a way of saying that this idea now belongs to you. And if tomorrow you happen to talk about it with someone, perhaps talking about the "Nixon shock" or Trump's visit to Beijing, on Lara Notes you can mark that moment with Shared Offline: this way, the conversation remains etched as a true shared experience. This Note comes from The Economist and saved you 5 minutes compared to the original article.