As a new year dawns, it is natural to ponder whether things will improve or just remain the same. Looking at relations between China and Japan, it must be said that there is reason for optimism, although problems will clearly remain.
On the history issue, which was a serious problem last year, there are signs that both sides want to play down its significance. In China, a senior editor of the official People's Daily wrote an article last month urging Beijing to consider Japanese behaviour in the 1930s and 1940s a closed issue. The writer, Ma Licheng, said Asia should be proud of Japan for its transformation into the world's second-largest economy.
He said excessively nationalistic anti-Japanese sentiment should be severely criticised, and Japan should be assessed on the basis of objective facts. He also said that Japan deserved credit for its economic co-operation with China.
Mr Ma said that, with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's apology in 2001 at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, where the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, the issue of a Japanese apology should be considered closed.
The fact that such an article can appear in China suggests that influential elements within the Beijing leadership believe that a new page should be opened in Sino-Japanese relations, with the past relegated to the history books.
In Japan, too, there are efforts to ameliorate historical differences with China. A report by a government panel on Tuesday last week suggested the construction of a secular memorial to Japan's war dead. This is seen as an attempt to ease the dispute over visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are honoured, along with other war dead.
However, even members of the panel said the proposal was not likely to achieve the intended aim of settling controversies over the Yasukuni Shrine. Moreover, Mr Koizumi, after receiving the report, publicly made known his intention to again visit the controversial shrine this year.