Japanese look back on what could have been

Evident economic strains

In Japan's all-important export sector, the economic strains brought on by the pandemic are evident.

According to government data, Japan's exports slumped 11.8 percent for the first 10 months of 2020. Shipments to the United States plunged 19.1 percent and those to the European Union fell by 16.5 percent.

However, it's been a different story with exports to China. They recorded year-over-year growth from May to October after sharp decrease from January to April. For the first 10 months of 2020, the cumulative increase in Japan's exports to China was 3.3 percent against the same period of last year.

This shows China's significant role in promoting Japan's recovery, Dai said.

Reflecting Dai's views, Seguchi said: "Japanese companies cannot thrive without the scale of the Chinese market."

The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, in November by 15 countries－including China, Japan and South Korea－has intensified the economic interdependence of China and Japan.

More broadly, the largest free-trade zone puts China and Japan in a grouping that represents around 30 percent of the world's population, and a similar proportion for the 15 nations' combined gross domestic product and value of exports.

"Although a free-trade agreement between China, Japan and South Korea has not been signed yet, the RCEP means the FTA for China, Japan and South Korea has de facto started," Dai said.

"It has also laid a good foundation for the early formal signing of the three countries' free-trade agreement, for which more strict or detailed rules on fair competition and new cross-border economic activities will be required."

In spite of the optimism engendered by the RCEP, Tokyo and Beijing have had to deal with challenges in the political realm in 2020.

"Japan used to restrict itself to not interfering in other countries' domestic affairs," said Wu Huaizhong, deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"However, in 2020 we could see a tendency for Tokyo to take a strong stance against China on some domestic issues concerning Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang," he added.

"All these issues are entirely China's domestic affairs and as such there is no place for foreign interference," Wu said, adding that Beijing should be cautious about the activities of some nationalistic lawmakers in Japan who want to take a tougher line on China.

Masanari Koike, a former member of Japan's House of Representatives, said that another challenge worth noting is a shift in Japanese people's mindset toward China.

"Without direct interactions, the media became the only source for Japanese people to get information about China," Koike said.

"The mass negative coverage of China in Japan's TV, newspaper and other media networks has affected Japanese people's mindset. That has made them less interested in China and less sympathetic to China."

A survey by Japanese and Chinese organizations in November showed that the percentage of Japanese respondents holding a "very good or relatively good" impression of China was only 10 percent, having declined from 15 percent in 2019. The drop ended a four-year run of increases recorded in the annual poll.

"It seems necessary to take time and more effort to get the countries back on the course they used to be on," Koike said of the outlook for bilateral relations.

"In 2021, with a new and levelheaded Japanese prime minister, I believe China and Japan can recover from the pandemic and enliven the friendship by picking up where we left off."