A rich empirical account of China's foreign economic policy towards Japan after World War Two, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified Chinese sources. Amy King offers an innovative conceptual framework for the role of ideas in shaping foreign policy, and examines how China's Communist leaders conceived of Japan after the war. The book shows how Japan became China's most important economic partner in 1971, despite the recent history of war and the ongoing Cold War divide between the two countries. It explains that China's Communist leaders saw Japan as a symbol of a modern, industrialised nation, and Japanese goods, technology and expertise as crucial in strengthening China's economy and military. For China and Japan, the years between 1949 and 1971 were not simply a moment disrupted by the Cold War, but rather an important moment of non-Western modernisation stemming from the legacy of Japanese empire, industry and war in China.

'With the support of pioneering multi-archival research, Amy King’s pathbreaking book has made a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the complicated dynamics and many previously little studied dimensions of Chinese-Japanese relations in the Cold War.'

Chen Jian - Hu Shih Professor of History and China-US Relations, Cornell University, New York

‘What were the key processes that led China and Japan from being bitter enemies during World War II to the normalization of their diplomatic relations in 1972, followed by a 'honeymoon' period and then a souring of relations in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century? Amy King’s new book China–Japan Relations after World War Two is an important addition to the field that we should welcome.'

Quansheng Zhao Source: The China Journal

'This is a valuable contribution to the study of Sino-Japanese and international relations of the early People’s Republic … King’s study benefits in no small measure from her timely research at China’s foreign ministry archives, which have been closed to researchers since 2014.’

Joyman Lee Source: The China Quarterly