Arthur Kroeber, the Beijing-based editor of China Economic Quarterly, says this is essentially "a strategy by which they hedge the political and economic uncertainties of the China market with complementary investments elsewhere, mainly Southeast Asia".
Abe visited all 10 ASEAN countries in 2013, his first year in office, issuing a strong message that Japan is back -- economically and politically -- combined with big aid packages to help smooth the process. Vietnam, for instance, now receives more than $1bn in aid a year from Tokyo.
Kroeber adds that China is also pushing for better access to resources and markets in underdeveloped areas of Southeast Asia.
"For a region that suffered a dearth of investment for over a decade following the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, the competition for influence between Japan and China is an economic godsend," he says.
The Liberal Democratic Party -- and the broader voting public -- of Japan opted in a big way for Abe, viewed as a strong leader, as anxiety grew about China with the Senkaku/Diaoyu falling-out.
And the ruling Chinese Communist Party has given Xi considerably enhanced power, as frustration had built under his predecessors, with a sense of drift over issues including economic reform and corruption.
Both leaders have special new inter-agency committees answering to them personally on security and reform.
Abe is politically secure until 2016, and Xi until 2022.
While Xi's reform program has impressed -- although most implementation still awaits -- Abe's has disappointed to date. Kroeber describes it as "an incoherent jumble of initiatives reliant mainly on the standard technique of Japanese planners: identifying new sectors for massive investment".
Takatoshi Ito, dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, told Asialink and the Australia Japan Foundation in Melbourne recently that Australia offered something of a model for political bravery and cunning in cementing reforms.
He noted that the Howard government introduced the GST a month before the Sydney Olympics, in the context of Tokyo winning the 2020 Games.
Acknowledging that the "third arrow" of Abenomics after monetary and fiscal change, the reform arrow, can appear thin and fragmented, he said it was better described as like a thousand needles, or a hundred daggers.
Ito says Abe wants a strong, competitive agriculture industry in Japan. "If Australia can fly fresh milk profitably to China, why not Japan? We can use Australia as a model for removing state restrictions," he says.
The countries need each other economically, and they -- and the rest of the region including Australia -- would benefit from detente despite the resulting loss of nationalist rallying points.
