TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

At the same time, however, the two countries seem to be inseparable.

China is Japan's largest trading partner. In 2014, China provided 22.3 percent of Japan's imports. More than 23,500 Japanese enterprises have invested in China.

However hard she tried, it was not easy for Ma Huixin to eliminate all the Japanese elements from her life. Her son liked Japanese animations. Her family recently watched the movie "Doraemon: Stand by Me". The blue cat-like robot was part of the mother's childhood memories, too.

Yang Haihui said that at least one of every 10 automobiles that roll off production lines in China used chips produced by his company.

Perhaps Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, east China, is a place where anti-Japan sentiment is highest. The Rape of Nanking massacre in the winter of 1937 left at least 300,000 people dead at the hands of the Japanese. The death toll has never been officially recognized by Japan.

Taxi driver Wu Qifeng in Nanjing has a rule: Never carry Japanese. Once he discovered that two of his three passengers were Japanese, he stopped the cab immediately. "I ordered them to get out," he said. "In Nanjing, I am not the only driver to do so."

In the shopping malls, however, Japanese cosmetics still line the shelves, and books by Japanese authors are also available. "There are always people asking me 'why are there Japanese cars on the roads of Nanjing',"Wu said. He felt ashamed.

The situation was no different in Japan.

Xinhua interviewed three Japanese: A 41-year-old civil servant, a 27-year-old lawyer and a 52-year-old manager. They expressed a preference for Chinese cuisine, trust in traditional Chinese medicine and good impressions of clothes and electrical appliances made in China.

"But if I had the choice, I would only eat food made in Japan, because I always see reports of bad food quality in China," said the manager.

LOOKING FORWARD

Many Chinese, especially the young, have tried to embrace Japan.

Han Feng likes Japan. She watches Japanese movies, and buys Japanese brands.

"I even visited the Yasukuni Shrine, but the overt denial of aggression just made me really angry," she said. Han is from northeast China, where the Japanese set up the puppet regime Manchukuo.

"We really want to let go of the past," said Jiang Yicong, 22, whose great grandfather led the No. 19 Army against the Japanese in Shanghai. "But if they stop the attempt to temper with history, we could get on much better."

Last month, three Japanese cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife visited the Yasukuni Shrine. In July, Japan's Lower House passed a controversial security bill that would give the Self-Defense Force a greater role worldwide; this is a violation of the country's post-war constitution.

Despite these trying circumstances, the people of both countries never stopped moving closer to each other.

By April 2013, 60 percent of Japan's international students were from China. Similarly, Japan was China's fourth biggest foreign student origin country.