Japan-China relations will remain tense

Significance Adding to bilateral security tensions is the recent murder of a Japanese boy in Shenzhen, which spotlighted the impact of xenophobia towards China’s Japanese community and worsened already dampened two-way business prospects. Impacts Xenophobia in China will persist given Beijing’s denial of issues in patriotic education and the utility of distraction from economic woes. Resurfacing Chinese claims to the entirety of the Ryukyu Islands will raise concerns that Beijing may stoke a further territorial dispute. Tokyo will attempt to disaggregate security hazards from critical economic ties, although that will become increasingly difficult. Any visits by Ishiba to the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates war dead including war criminals, would harm ties with Beijing and Seoul.