Tokyo and Beijing are multiplying their gestures of goodwill to ease their relations. Yet this good-tempered diplomacy that Beijing mixes, without much success, with positive gestures regarding Taipei, will not be enough–far from it–to overcome recurring rivalry in North-East Asia. This goes to the heart of the rivals’ sense of identity and the way they see their place and role in the region. All the indicators suggest that neither Beijing, Tokyo nor Washington, even less Taipei, are ready to make the changes and concessions necessary to calm the tensions that still exist in the region despite the ending of the Cold War.