Good story on the counter-reality not well covered yet in the press. Japan's political and military elite might now have a clue about how interdependent their economy already is with that of China, but Japan's business elite is under no such illusion.

Here it is:

October 31, 2005
Economic Ties Binding Japan to Rival China
By HOWARD W. FRENCH and NORIMITSU ONISHI
New York Times

SHANGHAI, Oct. 26 - At a call center in Dalian, in northeast China, young workers speaking flawless Japanese answer customer service calls for a Japanese insurance company. In western Japan, a new commercial Chinatown is rising in Kobe City's rebuilt port area.

Rather than the gaudy restaurants of the old Chinatown, the new one contains nondescript office buildings leased to Chinese companies focusing on everything from biotechnology to that most traditional form of Japanese attire, the kimono.

At a time of rising political tensions, heightened by a growing nationalism, China and Japan are more intertwined economically than they have ever been. In their breadth and intensity, the ties have begun to surpass those between the United States and Japan, whose economic relationship has often been called the most important in the world . . .