China and Japan draw closer as Asia's diplomatic order shifts

Amid a shared fear of being left out of the whirlwind diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula and regional tremors caused by US President Donald Trump's economic isolationism, longstanding rivals China and Japan have found more reason to engage with each other and the region.

"Both China and Japan are suffering from what the young people call FOMO (fear of missing out)," Rana Mitter, a history professor at the University of Oxford and director of its China Center told CNN.

"There is a danger of a new arrangement in their region in which both Japan and China have an interest without their full participation."

Japan fears that any deal struck with North Korea will ignore its concerns, while China is working hard to make sure that Kim Jong Un doesn't move out of its sphere of influence.

Bitter territorial disputes over East China Sea islands and long-running grievances dating back to World War II have led to regular outbreaks of hostilities between China and Japan. At one point, ties became so bad that the two sides resorted to invoking Voldemort, the fictional villain in the Harry Potter books, in their verbal barbs about each other.

But the past year has seen something of a rapprochement between the two, including the first phone call between Abe and Xi earlier this month.

Three-way meeting

Before the state visit, Li took part in a trilateral meeting on Wednesday morning with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, to discuss the outcome of April's historic Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Japan and South Korea have also been on frosty terms in recent years, over ongoing disputes and recriminations around the Japanese military's actions in World War II.

Moon, Abe and Li held their discussions at the State Guest House in Tokyo on Wednesday morning, before the South Korean leader departs in the afternoon.

"The whole world is closely looking at the Korean Peninsula and North East Asia. I'm sure that a close cooperation among three countries will create peace and prosperity in the region," Moon said after the meeting, which was the first trilateral talks since a 2015 summit in South Korea.

The Chinese leader will then spend another two days in Japan, during which time he will meet with Japan's Emperor Akihito and attend a state banquet hosted by Abe.

Li's meeting with Emperor Akihito will be the first time one of China's top leaders has met with the 84-year-old Japanese emperor since then-Vice President Xi Jinping met him in Tokyo in 2009.

The meeting is especially significant due to Akihito's plans to step down from his official role in April 2019, according to Heigo Sato, vice president at the Institute of World Studies at Takushoku University.

"It will Li Keqiang's last chance to meet this Emperor so in that the Japanese government has made a special treatment to the Chinese premier," he told CNN.

Meeting with emperor

The growing warmth between China and Japan was, in part, kicked off by Abe in September 2017 when he became the first Japanese leader in 15 years to attend the Chinese embassy's annual National Day celebrations.

Since then, Abe and Chinese President Xi have met at an international summit, while both countries have praised each other's efforts to improve relations.

The prospect of a formal visit by Abe to China and a reciprocal Xi visit to Japan has been teased in recent months by the two countries.

Oxford University's Mitter warned there were still significant differences remaining between Tokyo and Beijing, putting at risk any real chance of a warmer diplomatic relationship.

"The overall strategic points haven't really changed. China is still spending a lot on the PLA Navy, Japan continues to have an abiding concern that the primary purpose of the Chinese expansion is to change the rules of the regional order," he told CNN.

East Asian tensions

Since World War II, China and Japan have had a rocky relationship, often driven apart by lingering resentment over Imperial Japan's atrocities during the war.

Relations in recent times last peaked at the end of the 2000s when the leaders of both East Asian powers made highly publicized tours of each others' countries.

President Hu Jintao visited Japan in 2008 and met with both Emperor Akihito and then-Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, whose successor Taro Aso then toured China in 2009.

But a matter of years later, in 2012, Tokyo and Beijing clashed again over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea, sparking anti-Japanese protests in China.

Mitter said while there was no doubt relations between the two major East Asian powers had warmed considerably, many questions remained over how long the goodwill would last.

Due to a combination of anger, resentment and lack of mutual understanding on both sides, a close relationship between the two countries was unlikely in the short term.

"I think the relationship between the two will sort of warm and cool overtime, year by year, but it's unlikely to move outside a spectrum of mutual wariness," Mitter said.