Can China-Japan youth exchanges and goodwill overcome their deep political chill?

Yasushi Kaifu has never been to China, and the 15-year-old Tokyo resident does not plan on visiting any time soon.

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Few of Kaifu’s high school friends have ever travelled to China either, and as reports of tensions in the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait mount, so too do their negative views and unease about Japan’s big neighbour.

“Because I live in Japan, I would be worried if there was a big war once a conflict broke out in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

Keitoku Ikegami, 24, a graduate student at International Christian University in Tokyo, has been to China, but said visiting now would not be an easy decision.

“As a Japanese person, considering political tensions between the two countries, I will be quite hesitant on whether I should really go to China,” he said.

The crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. Photo: Kyodo
The crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. Photo: Kyodo

  

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