Noriko Unno, PhD, is an assistant professor at Osaka University. This talk traces the history of cultural interactions between Japan and the Hui people (Sinophone Muslims), an ethnic minority group in the People's Republic of China said to be descended from foreign Muslims who migrated to China from today’s Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia from the seventh to fourteenth century. It reviews the influence of Islam in China on Japanese intellectuals during the Edo period, political and cultural activities of Hui youths studying in Meiji Japan, the Hui people’s responses to Japanese imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century, one contemporary Hui writer’s perception of Japan, and the rising popularity of halal Chinese cuisine in Japan. This overview offers a new perspective on the history of relations between East Asia and Islam by considering the mutual influences on Japan and Muslims in China, as well as Japanese understandings of Chinese and Islamic culture.