THE year 2018 was a good year for China’s neighborhood diplomacy,with a succession of breakthroughs being made.Most notable of these was China’s improved relations with two of its major neighbors,India and Japan.The China-India relationship warmed up in the year after the Doklam stand-off in June 2017.The China-Japan relationship has also gradually thawed after the disputes around the Diaoyu Islands in 2012.In addition,Kim Jong Un,chairman of the Workers’Party of Korea(WPK)and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK),visited China three times during the year,attaching great importance to China-DPRK relations.Kim Jong Un’s meeting with the U.S.President Donald Trump in Singapore also eased tensions in the Korean Peninsula,shifting the focus of Northeast Asia towards economic cooperation.