Lookback Year of 2007

Happy New Year to you all!

I am starting today to write on significant developments and news on China-Japan-US triangle relations in the past year. As you may recall, it was a year filled with the good, the beautiful as well as the bad, even not quite as ugly.

On the top of the list is Exchange of visits from Japanese and Chinese leaders. Mr. Fukuda visited Beijing on Dec 27th, in a return to Chinese Prime Minister Wen's visit to Tokyo in April.

Economy side, for the fist time in history, exchange rate of Chinese currency RMB climbs to 7.2 to 1 dollar, highest level ever.

However, dispute over East China Sea gas reserve is a huge cloud hanging over the two energy consuming giants. In September, Chinese war planes were reported to have fly over oil fields in the disputed area over 40 times, and trigged Japanese Self Defense planes to get ready. Both Japan and China have discussed the issue at highest levels, however, they are yet to reach an agreement.

Japanese media are turning more attention to China over next year's Beijing Olympics, the weakness of China's environment, ever growing gap between the have and havenot will be highlighted along with the glorify of the medals and torches.