They’re at it again. China and Japan are frenemies, trading partners and uneasy neighbors with a tortured and bloody history they’re still working through. Now they're freshly at each other’s rhetorical throats as 2026 begins. And it’s over the very sticking points that have kept them resentful and suspicious of each other for many decades. That's Japan’s occupation of parts of China in the 20th century, the use of the military in East Asia — and, of course, politics and economics. When it comes to the China-Japan relationship, anger remains a powerful and enduring tool on both sides. And there’s no indication that’s going away anytime soon.
