China–Japan relations or Sino–Japanese relations (simplified Chinese: 中日关系; traditional Chinese: 中日關係; pinyin: Zhōngrì guānxì; Japanese: 日中関係, romanized: Nicchū kankei) are the bilateral relations between China and Japan. The countries are geographically separated by the East China Sea. Japan has been strongly influenced throughout its history by China, especially by the East and Southeast through the gradual process of Sinicization with its language, architecture, culture, cuisine, religion, philosophy, and law. When Japan was forced to open trade relations with the West after the Perry Expedition in the mid-19th century, Japan plunged itself through an active process of Westernization during the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and began viewing China under the Qing Dynasty as an antiquated civ