China and Japan — frenemies, trading partners and uneasy neighbors with a tortured, bloody history they still struggle to navigate — are freshly at each other’s rhetorical throats as 2026 begins. And it’s over the same sticking points that have kept them resentful and suspicious for many decades: Japan’s occupation of parts of China in the 20th century, the use of military power in East Asia, economics and politics — and, of course, pride.From insinuations that Chinese citizens face dangers in Japan to outright accusations of resurgent Japanese imperialism, this first week of the year in China has been marked by the communist government scorning Tokyo on multiple fronts and noticeably embracing the visiting leader of another crucial strategic neighbor: South Korea.
The latest chapter in Japan-China enmity surged In November when Japan’s new leader waded into choppy bilateral waters. She said, in effect, that if China moved militarily against Taiwan, she wouldn’t rule out involving Japan’s constitutionally defense-only military. That didn’t go over well in Beijing, which has teed off on Tokyo over the years for far less.
