These days, between blasts of hot air over disputed gas fields and outbursts condemning "revisionist" history books, it's rare to hear praise from China for its geopolitical rival to the east.
So it was all the more surprising to learn that China's Ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, was beside himself with admiration last month after taking part in Cool Asia 2006, a "green" fashion show hosted in Tokyo by the Environment Ministry in a bid to "send an anticlimate-change message from Asia to the world."
Clearly, last year's Cool Biz campaign in Japan had struck a chord by encouraging people to wear cooler clothing in summer and so reduce the role of air conditioning in making that stifling season bearable. According to the ministry, in fact, just by setting air-con dials nationwide at no cooler than 28 C, Japanese businesses could cut each summer's emissions of carbon dioxide, a chief culprit in global warming, by a whopping 1.6-2 million tons.