Abstract: Under two interrelated themes of “world changes and Sino-Japanese relations” and “world changes and the COVID-19 pandemic”, this paper analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated worldchanges and impacted Sino-Japanese relations. When the world changes met the catastrophic pandemic of this century, their leading trends have been further accelerated, and profoundly impacted the new type of Sino-Japanese relations, which have just been promoted and formed “in accordance with needs of the New Era” since June 2019. These impacts are concentrated in four aspects: new opportunities provided by the rapid rise of emerging markets, new challenges posed by the sharply adjusting balance of major powers, new space of growth created by global economy moving eastward, and new demands sparked by the accelerating transformation of the global governance system.

Key words: world changes, COVID-19 pandemic, Sino-Japanese relations, new opportunities, new challenges, new space of growth, new demands