Are China-Japan ties starting to show some improvement?

JAPAN and China are experiencing a definite, if limited, thaw in their relations. Up until last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who assumed office in December 2012, had met Chinese President Xi Jinping only four times and Premier Li Keqiang twice, all on the margins of multilateral conferences.

The first such meeting, during the Apec gathering in Beijing three years ago, saw an unsmiling Mr Xi turn his back on Mr Abe's interpreter as she was translating his words - unusually rude diplomatic behaviour. Since then, the overall relationship has remained cold if not frigid.

This stemmed from the previous Japanese government's decision in 2012 to nationalise the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands, which are also claimed by China. Japan's motive was to thwart a Japanese right-winger's plan to take them over in order to launch provocative actions against China. However, China suspected some dark dastardly plot and the bilateral relationship entered a deep freeze that lasted five years.