Edging closer

UNMISTAKABLE signs of a thaw in the frozen relations between China and Japan are growing. Indeed, the betting now is that Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in November, on the margins of the APEC trade meeting that China will host in Beijing. Until now, China has considered Mr Abe beyond the pale because of his visit last December to Tokyo’s imperialist Yasukuni shrine.

The thaw began in the summer. In July a former Japanese prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, called on Mr Xi. He bore a soothing letter from Mr Abe and shared a “sense of crisis” over the two countries’ troubled relations. Elsewhere, Chinese and Japanese academics and officials have quietly met to try to work out how to bring their two countries closer. Mr Xi himself has declared that China wants “long-term, steady and healthy” relations with Japan. Several dozen Japanese business leaders were recently welcomed in the Chinese capital. On September 23rd-24th Japanese and Chinese officials met in the Chinese port city of Qingdao to resume talks about matters of concern in the East China Sea. And now Mr Abe himself has, for the first time, mused publicly about how nice it would be to meet Mr Xi.