In 1995, following a Chinese nuclear test, carried out only three days after it was announced that an international conference embracing nearly all states had agreed to renew the NPT indefinitely (and within a context in which the other declared nuclear powers had stopped conducting tests sine 1992), the Japanese government took the unprecedented step of cancelling the aid of US$92 million that had been promised for the year.
Japan was also prominent in its sharp criticism of China’s creeping assertiveness in the South China Sea in the dispute with the Philippines over Mischief Reef in March 1995.
Both developments were much resented in China.
Japanese attitudes towards China were also beginning to harden.