Sixty-three years after Japanese troops stormed ashore, Shanghai is dotted with neighborhoods of Japanese residents. Japanese-language magazines cater to the wealthy Asian expatriates with everything from restaurant reviews to message club listings, and the membership directory of the Japanese chamber of commerce reads like a who's who of the Japanese corporate world.

    The comfortable veneer of life overseas was suddenly stripped away in April, however, when a large protest march against visits by Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese forces responsible for atrocities throughout Asia, degenerated into a riot. Crowds pelted the Japanese Consulate with eggs and stones.

    Mr. Hori of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank, who is also chairman of the Japanese chamber of commerce in Shanghai, said his worst fear was another widespread protest. Still, he added, "it is meaningless to think Japanese companies would withdraw and go somewhere else."

    Among students at the Dalian University of Technology, many of whom will be vying for jobs at Japanese companies, there is a strong sense of pragmatism. "History problems are history problems, but I think you have to be realistic," Zhang Shuai, a 22-year-old engineering student, told the New York Times.

    Here and there, the same kind of pragmatism can be found in Japan, in sharp contrast to the anxious, sometimes hysterical public discussion of a rising China. Like the rest of the heavily industrialized Kansai region of Japan, Kobe, the port city that was devastated by an earthquake 10 years ago, has been economically depressed for years.

    Sensing opportunity in China's rise, the city government has invested heavily in attracting Chinese businesses and promoting trade with China, especially the Shanghai region.

    One businessman, Chen Jianjun, 43, is the founder of a biotechnology consulting firm, Shanghai Rundo Biotech Japan, in Kobe. After completing a graduate degree in Japan, Mr. Chen worked at Nestl¨¦ before going out on his own. Now he advises Japanese pharmaceutical companies on conducting clinical trials and marketing in China, giving him a broad perspective on the countries' problems. "China and Japan are close to each other but have a distant relationship," he said. "Each does not understand the other well."

    In Japan, business tends to support Mr. Koizumi for leading domestic economic change, but cringes at his government's antagonistic policy toward China. Business people fear that after Mr. Koizumi retires next year, an even more nationalistic leader may replace him.