China–Japan relations after World War Two

Japan's defeat in 1945 and its withdrawal from continental Asia resulted in the breaking of long-established economic ties with China. This estrangement deepened with the emergence of the Cold War. On separate sides of the geopolitical divide, and with Tokyo recognizing the regime in Taipei and not Beijing, bilateral economic exchange all but evaporated. It was only with the normalization of relations in September 1972 that Japan was again able to become a major trading partner of China. This narrative may be familiar, yet it is also largely false. As Amy King convincingly argues in her new book on postwar China–Japan economic relations, the years 1949 to 1971 are far from being lost years. Indeed, ‘by 1965, Japan had become China's most important trade partner, and by 1971 nearly a third of China's total imports came from Japan’ (p. 2). This was made possible through three unofficial Sino-Japanese trade agreements in the 1950s and two more in the 1960s. Japanese technicians also played a major role in developing the People's Republic of China's (PRC) economy during its early years. ‘One example was the Hegang Mine in Heilongjiang Province, which was home to more than 1,200 Japanese workers’. Some of these were ‘among the more than 500 Japanese technicians who received commendation for their work at the May Day celebrations in 1950’ (p. 64)

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