Late-race rainfall had unpicked Hamilton's best-laid plans to cruise home in the fifth place he needed to deny Massa the crown and it looked like he would blow his chances of becoming champion for the second season running.
He feels that by the time they've unpicked a budget the impact's been made, the goodwill has been secured and the real analysis of the unpicking is sort of left to the small print, and the small change of politics.
Back in 2008 the two countries agreed on a framework for the joint development of disputed gasfields in the East China Sea, though China unpicked this good work when a Chinese trawler rammed a Japanese coastguard vessel near the Senkakus in 2010.