2021年，全球新冠疫情持续，日本经济与社会受到多轮疫情冲击，作为“防疫内阁”上台的菅义伟政府未能平衡处理好疫情防控与经济复苏，在自民党内中青年议员“逼宫”之下周年而终。继任的岸田文雄内阁除推进新冠对策和自民党改革外，重点推出“新资本主义”概念，拟对“安倍经济学”做出调整，实现经济增长和公平分配之间的平衡。日本经济在2020年大幅衰退后，在超宽松货币政策支撑下持续复苏，但动力明显不足，2021年全年实际GDP增长1.7%。2021年，日本对外战略继续沿“安倍路线”惯性轨道滑行，泛化渗透安全概念，致力于打造各类安全合作，但周边关系南北失衡，外交短板故态依旧。2021年，中日关系承接上年走势，持续低位震荡。日本积极介入台海问题、南海争端，做实针对中国的“印太”构想，中日东海矛盾加剧，战略猜疑持续扩大。岸田接任首相后，在两国领导人高层引领下，中日关系的积极因素有所增加，但结构性矛盾、政治安全领域的分歧短期难以化解。而且，随着日本持续推进经济安全保障政策，中日经贸合作也将面临挑战。2022年，受国际形势、日本国内政治等因素影响，中日关系仍将呈现较大的不稳定性和不确定性。
In 2021，as the COVID-19 epidemic continued in global range，and Japan’s economy and society were hit by multiple waves of epidemics. The Yoshihide Suga administration，which took office as the “epidemic prevention cabinet”，failed to balance epidemic prevention with economic recovery，and ended within just one year under the pressure of young and middle-aged congressmen of the Liberal Democratic Party （LDP）. The successor cabinet of Fumio Kishida，in addition to promoting COVID-19 measures and the reform of LDP，focuses on the concept of “new capitalism” and plans to adjust the “Abenomics” to reach a balance between economic growth and fair distribution. After a sharp recession in 2020，the Japanese economy continued to recover under the support of ultra-loose monetary policy，however，the momentum was obviously insufficient，with Japan’s real GDP growth of 1.7% for the whole year. In 2021，Japan’s foreign strategy continued to slide along the track of “the Abe line” and came to influence its concept of national security，and committed to building various types of security cooperation. However，the unbalancing neighboring relations of Japan with the Northeast Asian countries and Southeast Asian countries and its diplomatic weakness remained unsolved. Following the trend of the previous year，the China-Japan relations continued to experience fluctuation in 2021. Japan has actively intervened in the Taiwan Straits issue and the South China Sea dispute and strengthened the “Indo-Pacific Vision” to counterbalance China，and the conflict in the East China Sea and the strategic suspicion between China and Japan intensifies. Since Kishida took office，with the effort from top leaders of the two countries，the positive factors of China-Japan relations have increased，however，the structural contradictions and political and security differences between the two sides remain difficult to resolve in the short term. Moreover，as Japan continues to push forward its economic and security policies，China-Japan economic and trade cooperation will also face challenges. In 2022，due to the current international situation and Japan’s domestic politics，the China-Japan relations will continue to present great instability and uncertainty.
