Abstract: The COVID-19 epidemic has had a major impact on Japan's society, economy, and politics. At the same time, due to the severity and global characteristics of this epidemic, Japan's international environment is also facing great uncertainties. Japan's response to the epidemic reflects a highly selfdisciplined society and its national characteristics, resulting in mixed effects though. The epidemic has also brought both opportunities and challenges to SinoJapanese relations. On the one hand, the mutual assistance in the early stages of the epidemic has greatly helped improve the feelings of the people of the two countries, which have been sluggish in recent years. The willingness to cooperate in nontraditional security fields like public health has increased, and the consensus on how to adjust and strengthen bilateral and regional economic and trade cooperation has gradually formed during and after the epidemic. At the same time, the structural contradiction between China and Japan has not been eliminated by the epidemic, and even appears as a negative factor in the epidemic. The continuous deterioration of Sino-US relations has added more uncertainty to Sino-Japanese relations for the postepidemic period. Generally speaking, the trend of improvement in Sino-Japanese relations in recent years has not changed its basic direction despite the epidemic. However, how to deal with the major adjustments of the US strategy towards China and how to use the epidemic as an opportunity to build a bilateral relationship that meets the requirements of the new era are questions both China and Japan need to seriously think about based on a high degree of political wisdom in this decisive moment of human history.

Key words: COVID-19 epidemic, Japanese society, China-Japan relations, China-US-Japan relations, cooperation and balancing