Since Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese prime minister, made his ground-breaking visit to China in 2006, the talk between Tokyo and Beijing has been of melting ice and spring warmth.

Now they have added pandas and ping-pong to the language of their diplomatic exchanges. Last week’s visit of President Hu Jintao to Japan – the first by a Chinese head of state in a decade – was marked by China’s offer to lend a pair of pandas to a Tokyo zoo and a game of ping-pong for Mr Hu at the city’s Waseda University.