Japanese PM Shinzo Abe met Xi Jinping in Beijing, and in an era of US tariffs and trade wars, you can bet everything Abe remembers the last time the US passed over Japan for China

• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose grandfather was PM when the US isolated Japan from China, arrived in Beijing last week for a three-day state visit.
• This was Japan’s first formal bilateral summit with Chinese leaders since 2011 and the first in an era of US regional uncertainty under the current administration.
• US President Trump is acting as an “accelerant in the unwinding of Pax Americana,” driving the two Asian nations closer, one expert says.
• Abe met Premier Li Keqiang (李克强) on Thursday, and discussed economic cooperation, free trade, and global growth and Japan’s role in the Belt and Road Initiative.

It is July 1971.

The Cold War is hot and the US has ordered its client-state and vanquished former enemy to sit tight on reaching out to communist China.

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