The relationship between China and Japan seems to have improved since Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda took over in September. The improvement, though, is largely superficial.
The maritime dispute in the East China Sea, with prospective oil and gas reserves at stake, remains a flashpoint of sorts.
And China remains bitter about wartime atrocities committed by Japan, which attempts to whitewash crimes by rewriting school textbooks.
Even Fukuda's personal charm and diplomatic initiatives cannot erase these problems.
Indeed, Beijing wouldn't be impressed with the recent test-firing and shooting down of a ballistic missile by a Japanese Navy destroyer over the Pacific.
There are two reasons for this. Japan is increasing its military capability against a rising China. There is also new vitality in the US-Japan security alliance, with China obviously (but not explicitly) seen as a joint threat.
Last year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the new ties as embodying the transformation of US-Japan relations from "bilateral defense cooperation ... into a global alliance." The missile test was an example of this.
In their joint statement, Rear Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Lieutenant General Henry Obering, chief of the Missile Defense Agency at the Pentagon, described the test as a "major milestone" in growing US-Japanese cooperation.
Of course, missile defense development is being packaged as a counterweight to North Korea. Japan perceives Pyongyang to be a genuine threat, of course, and particularly so after the latter's 1998 testing of a three-stage missile over Japanese territory. But all of this, in a larger sense, is meant to deal with an emerging Chinese military threat.
Japanese missile development will complement and reinforce the large number of Patriot missiles that Japan is planning to buy from the US.
In other words, China remains a major factor that cements the US-Japan security relationship.
Because Japan's unilateral militarization remains a taboo given the likely repercussions in the Asia-Pacific region, it has no real substantial option but to secure and expand military ties with Washington.
For China, Japanese guilt over its wartime legacy is an important lever for moderating its political and military role in the region, thus leaving the former as the pre-eminent Asian power.
Within China, Japan's atrocities are an important political tool to impart legitimacy to the Communist Party.
As Kent Calder pointed out in a Foreign Affairs article: "In China, the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is bound up with its perceived role as the stalwart defender of national interests during the war with Japan."
And he adds: "The deference the party derives from that legacy grows ever more important to sustaining its rule as social inequities resulting from economic growth increase. Government policy, reflecting CCP concerns, promotes nationalist curricula in schools and intensive broadcasting of accounts of the war."
Against this nationalist backdrop, Fukuda's political initiatives to manage Japan's relations with China might reduce the temperature but will do nothing to establish them on a sustainable basis.
China is not keen on the idea of Japan playing a significant regional role in its own right. The only sustainable base from Beijing's viewpoint is for Japan to play a subservient role in China's regional sphere of influence.
There are, of course, dangers in pushing Japan further into the US fold. Being too close to the US could discredit Tokyo in the region by allowing itself to be painted as the instrument of an external power.
Japan is, therefore, in a serious dilemma, with or without a change of leadership. To play second fiddle to China would be a hard act, not likely to fit into the Japanese self-image.
On the other hand, turning Japan into a nationalist powerhouse all over again would give China more ammunition to rally other Asian countries against it.
Under the circumstances, the only feasible option for Tokyo is to further reinforce and strengthen security links with the US.
But as with any such situation with only one real option, Tokyo is bound to feel concern that China and the US might make up one day, leaving it high and dry.
Japan found itself in a similar situation after president Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972, when the US started to forge a strategic partnership with China against the Soviet Union.
Tokyo followed the US in mending fences with China. But it was not a pleasant experience for a nervous Japan.
If this part of history were to repeat with China now a much stronger and politically more respected player, it would drive a hard bargain with Japan that might be nothing short of accepting and respecting China's leadership in the Asia-Pacific region.
But there is another view that foresees a new equilibrium in China-Japan relations based on economic and strategic imperatives. Mike Mochizuki, an American expert on US-China-Japan relations, says: "Two imperatives are likely to steer the Japanese government toward keeping relations with China cordial and stable. The first is the commercial imperative. Japan's own economic fortunes are now increasingly tied to the continuing expansion of the Chinese economy."
And the second, he adds, "is the strategic imperative" of avoiding "an international situation in which it has to choose between its alliance with the United States and stable relations with China."
The problem with this analysis is that it puts the onus entirely on Japan to build cordial and stable relations with China. And it seems to ignore a national psyche for both countries that is embedded in historical bitterness and guilt.
Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.
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