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This week, China’s president and Japan’s prime minister announced a new agenda for China-Japan relations, ending the worst era of antagonism in their two countries’ relations since the end of World War II. In the first state visit by a Chinese leader to Japan in a decade, Hu Jintao and Japanese counterpart Fukuda Yasuo put aside difficult years of deep confrontation between their two countries. Promising to promote "mutually strategic interests," they committed to annual state visits and to a new agenda of cooperation on issues such as global climate change and promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

This new China-Japan relationship was put to the test not days after Hu left Tokyo, when China suffered its devastating earthquake May 12. Fukuda immediately sent his condolences to the Chinese people, and ordered the formation of a task force on disaster relief assistance in case Beijing asked for its help. On May 13, Foreign Minister Komura announced 500 million yen in emergency aid (roughly $5 million), and two days later, the Chinese government announced it would welcome a Japanese disaster relief team into Sichuan.