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 international relations between China and Japan. The countries are geographically separated by the East China Sea. Japan has been strongly influenced throughout history by China, through the gradual process of Sinicization with its language, architecture, culture, religion, philosophy, and law. When it opened trade relations with the West, particularly western Europe, in the mid-19th century, Japan plunged itself through an active process of Europeanisation during the Meiji Restoration in 1868 adopting the customs of Europe through the process of Modernization, and began viewing China as an antiquated civilization,