Abstract
Chinese-Japanese relations have become increasingly tense in recent years. It might be concluded superficially that the recent tensions originated from the historical issues and the bilateral sovereignty disputes over some islands. However, these tensions are deeply rooted in the structural contradictions of these bilateral relations, such as the conflicting national strategies of China and Japan, the relative balance of power between them, and the discrepancy of their interests in their games against the background of macro transition of the overall strategic pattern of the Asia-Pacific region. Furthermore, the U.S. strategic dilemma in this gaming process adds destabilizing factors to the development of China-Japan bilateral relations. The outcomes of the China-Japan tensions not only affect the rise and fall of the relative strengths of these two countries, but also have major influences over the general strategic arrangements of East Asia and the whole Asia-Pacific. Therefore, it is very meaningful to probe the deep-rooted causes of the Chinese-Japanese conflicts and to observe current China-Japan relations from the strategic perspective because some solutions might be discovered in this way.
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