History of China–Japan relations

The history of China–Japan relations spans thousands of years through trade, cultural exchanges, friendships, and conflicts. Japan has deep historical and cultural ties with China; cultural contacts throughout its history have strongly influenced the nation – including its writing system architecture, cuisine, culture, literature, religion, philosophy, and law.

Large-scale trade between the two nations began in the 1860s. Many Chinese students had also studied in Japan and was also used as a base by Chinese political activists to overthrow the imperial Qing dynasty in 1912. A series of wars and confrontations took place between 1880 and 1945, with Japan invading and seizing Taiwan, Manchuria and most of China. Japan was eventually defeated and withdrew in 1945.

Since 1950, relations have been tense after the Korean War, the Cold War and the grievances of Japanese war crimes committed in China and beyond. Nevertheless, trade has expanded greatly in the 21st century between the two nations and despite geopolitical disagreements are generally at peace with each other. In 2022, both China and Japan commemorated the 50th anniversary of the normalization of relations between their two nations.