In Brief

I’ve been following Japan-China relations pretty closely for a while now and hearing some murmurs from Chinese officials that this year could bring a big new agreement. I blogged on this in the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter blog during Hu Jintao's visit to Tokyo. Hu Jintao's visit did a lot to bring the countries closer but probably not as much as the picture below.

The earthquake disaster in Chengdu has arguably done more to bring the international community together than the Olympics will. How about for Japan-China? Apparently this photo below is having a huge positive effect in China, as one would imagine . . .

Japanese rescue members pay respects to the bodies of the female victim Song Aimei and her 70-day old baby after 16 hours of searching through the debris in Qingchuan County, Sichuan Province.

The full article is from the Xinhua news agency. There are other articles praising Japanese and other rescue efforts but I don't think any would speak as loud as the picture above.

Update: here is another powerful image