Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun recently reported that the country's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama might visit Nanjing during his trip to China to attend the "Japan Day" activities at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo in June.

If Hatoyama makes the trip, he will become the first serving Japanese prime minister to visit Nanjing after World War II. Though Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano subsequently denied the news, it is obvious that of late China-Japan relations have progressed fairly.

High-level reciprocal visits between the two countries have become frequent over the past two months. Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited Japan within 25 days of each other. During that time, Japan sent a super-large delegation of 630 people (including 143 Democratic Party of Japan's Diet members) to China. The media said that Ichiro Ozawa had brought "half of Japan's legislature" to China.

Economic cooperation between China and Japan is now a matter of interdependence, with China becoming Japan's largest trade partner, largest export market and most favorite outbound investment destination.

Japan, on the other hand, is China's third largest trade partner and second largest source of foreign investment. China's investment in Japan has seen a fast growth, too, and the global economic recession could further deepen their interdependence.

In the fields of culture, education, science and technology, arts and the media, the two sides have established a closer partnership with frequent exchanges. Take education for example. About 60 percent of the international students in Japan are from China, while Japan is the second largest source of foreign students in China. And the two governments plan to attract more students from each other's country.

In politics, since Hatoyama has made it clear that he would not visit the Yasukuni Shrine, Sino-Japanese relations are not likely to experience major fluctuations in the short run. Emperor Akihito's audience with visiting Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping was an exception and showed that Tokyo attached great importance to maintaining stable political relations with Beijing.

The two sides have realized that the establishment of an East Asian Community is inevitable, though China suggests that the process first be conducted within the framework of 10+3 (ASEAN plus China, Japan and the Republic of Korea), while Japan wants India, Australia and New Zealand (or 10+6), too, to be part of it.

Military ties act as a barometer of diplomatic relations between any two countries. After the Cold War, countries without military alliances have tried to strengthen military ties through various channels, such as reciprocal visits of generals and warships, joint maritime search and rescue operations and counter-terrorism drills. Viewed from these perspectives, Sino-Japanese military cooperation has progressed, too.

During Defense Minister Liang Guanglie's visit to Japan, the two sides reached a few agreements: Japan's defense minister will visit China within 2010, mutual visits between chiefs of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army and their Japanese counterparts will continue, annual consultations on defense and security will be held, exchange visits of warships will continue, joint maritime search and rescue training will be held at an appropriate time, and maritime liaison mechanism of defense sectors will be established as early as possible.

Therefore, we are confident that the Beijing-Tokyo partnership will be further strengthened in the next decade as long as Japanese leaders do not follow "the disastrous road of Junichiro Koizumi". Currently, the urgent task for the two countries is how to build a long-term framework that could steer bilateral relations toward a more solid cooperation.

Japan's national development path of "economy first, politics later" was established during Shigeru Yoshida's administration. In the 1980s, based on Japan's global economic status, Yasohiro Nakasone put forward that Japan should become a "political power", but that goal was frustrated by the "lost decade" of the 1990s. At the beginning of the 21st century, Junichiro Koizumi attempted to realize this goal (the amendment of the Japanese Constitution and the bid to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council) by"firmly following the US lead", but achieved no significant results.

Affected by the global financial crisis, China's rapid economic growth and the expansion of the Asia-Pacific region into the world economy, Hatoyama adopted a more Asia-focused foreign policy, putting forward "friendship diplomacy" and advocating the establishment of an East Asian Community.

But being aware that its economic potential cannot match that of China, coupled with the scruples of the US response, Japan proposed that the community should include India, Australia and New Zealand, none of which is an East Asian country. This suggestion shows that Japan has realized the necessity of regional integration, but it still lacks the courage and confidence to work with China.

The "10+6" model will significantly slow down the process of East Asian integration. And China firmly believes that only the "10+3" model is truly feasible. India, Australia and New Zealand could only be included after an East Asian Community is firmly established.

So Japan should abandon the inefficient and impractical "10+6" model and join hands with China, making the "10+3" model the basis of an East Asian Community, to act as the "double-engine" of regional integration.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sicences.