Expectations should remain realistic

their cooperation in industrial upgrading and energy, and cooperate in third party markets. For example, China has built the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway while a Japanese company manages the port of Mombasa, giving much potential for cooperation in Kenya.

After years of frostiness in bilateral relations, a positive momentum emerged last year as both China and Japan realized they needed each other for economic growth. In the past few years, their worsening political ties have inhibited their economic and trade cooperation, which is expected to be corrected with more high-level exchanges. Yet expectations for Abe’s visit should not be too high.

In the future, the two countries could expand cooperation in the new economy, environmental pro- tection, energy conservation, healthcare, insurance and peopleto-people exchanges. Speaking of the Belt and Road Initiative, it should be noted that the Japanese government can only guide and encourage enterprises to take part in specific programs. All in all, it’s up to the Japanese companies to decide whether to participate based on their comprehensive assessments of costs, market expectations and anticipated profits.

Meanwhile, despite Japan’s edging closer to China under the threats of US protectionism, it still considers its alliance with the US as the sine qua non of its foreign relations. Which is unlikely to change in the near future.

Liang Yunxiang, a professor of Japan studies at Peking University