SO here’s the 64 million dollar question: are China and Japan going to allow their increasingly heated war of words over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands to sink a still-thriving multi-billion dollar economic relationship?

The jury is still out. Diplomats from both countries seem hell bent on raising the stakes. But, whether they like it or not, the world’s second and third largest economies are bound together by an intricate trade and investment web — and desperately need each other to thrive.

China and Japan are clearly important business partners, with trade between the two — the world’s second and third largest economies respectively — valued at US$147.3 billion in the first six months of 2013 alone.

The commercial cost of the dispute could therefore be onerous for both sides. But will economics trump history and politics?

Even as they trade and invest, tensions between Tokyo and Beijing flare as regularly as clockwork, in particular due to the two nations’ varying versions of events during the Second World War.

More recently, the maritime row in the East China Sea over the disputed islands — known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China — has become increasingly acrimonious.

China’s decision last year to expand its air defence zone above the region has further strained relations as has Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit on Dec 26 to the Yasukuni Shrine which honours Japan’s war dead and where 14 Class A war criminals from World War II are also enshrined.

Recent weeks have seen an escalation in reciprocal verbal attacks, including a tragic/comic BBC Newsnight interview with the Japanese and Chinese ambassadors in Britain in which both envoys appeared hell bent on accusing the other’s country of the worst evils.

In an op-ed published in a British newspaper before the BBC interview, the Chinese ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, invoked the fictional evil villain in Harry Potter novels, Lord Voldemort, (also known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named — a reference to his enormous magical powers) in describing Japan’s actions.

“If militarism is like the haunting Voldemort of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is a kind of horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation’s soul,” said the rather lyrical Mr Xiaoming.

Japan responded by doubling down on the Harry Potter references in another article, with Japan’s ambassador to Britain, Keiichi Hayashi, accusing China of provocative behaviour and saying it risked becoming a “Voldemort in the region”.

Sadly, the same accusations were traded days later on the BBC — with the two envoys apparently so cross with each other that they could not even bear to sit in the same studio.

As I said, it was a tragicomic affair, and so frankly is the dispute itself. Of course, it’s all about history, pride, nationalistic fervour, territorial claims, sovereignty and other sentiments which would be laudable and understandable — in another era.

There are of course also immense fishery resources in the seabed as well as oil and gas. But in the 21st century, the sight of Asia’s most powerful economies coming close to conflict is alarming.

Remember: this was supposed to be the “Asian Century”, a time for Asia’s re-emergence as an economic powerhouse, a place of rapid economic growth and development.

Rising Asia cannot continue on its trajectory if governments across the region don’t solve or at least sidestep their historical enmities.

The people of both countries — and the region — deserve a better future than one darkened by two giants who cannot live in peace.

So back to the key question: will the deep economic ties between Japan and China stop the two countries from behaving like angry children?

As Japan seeks to boost growth rates as part of the much-publicised “Abenomics”, exports to China are crucially important to keep the Japanese economy humming along.

Certainly, with its growing population, rapid economic growth, expanding middle class and a predicted baby boom on the cards because of an end to the one-child policy, China is a perfect trading partner for Japan.

China needs Japan just as much. China’s export sector depends on Japanese investments, technology and on components imported from the country.

Japanese businesses have traditionally been the largest foreign investors in China. At $6.5 billion, Japanese FDI in China in the first ten months of 2013 was slightly more than that from the EU and twice as much as that from the United States.

European experience shows that building economic networks, expanding trade and investments and increased economic interdependence between countries is the best guarantee against war.

Like Europe, surely, China and Japan must realise that sustainable success in the 21st century requires alliance-building and cooperation, not hurling insults at each other.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.