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Chinese premier hails dialogue with Japan
Chinese premier hails dialogue with Japan
Sunday December 02, 2007
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Sunday as part of high-level weekend meetings between the two powers that Wen said had taken bilateral ties "a step forward".
The gathering brought together top trade, environment and other officials from the two sides in their highest-profile dialogue since they resumed diplomatic ties in 1972.
"I believe the summit has been successful. It's clear China and Japan relations have taken another step forward, especially in the areas of trade and commerce," Wen told Komura upon receiving him in Beijing.
Although no breakthroughs in trade or other areas have been reported from the summit, it marks another sign of warming relations between Asia's two largest economies.
During a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on Saturday, Komura invited President Hu Jintao to visit Japan next spring in what would be the first visit by China's top leader in a decade.
China cut off high-level contact with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, due to his visits to a controversial shrine honoring Japan's war dead.
Beijing, which suffered mightily from Japan's aggression in World War II, viewed those visits as a slap in the face.
But Koizumi's successor Shinzo Abe subsequently reached out to China. He was replaced in September by Yasuo Fukuda, a longtime advocate of warmer relations with Beijing who is expected to visit China in the coming months.
Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said Saturday China would seek to facilitate closer economic and trade tries, offering no specifics.
However, a Japanese spokesman said Yang and Komura failed to make progress on a long-running dispute over the rights to energy resources in the East China Sea between the two countries, a top Japanese priority.
The two sides plan another instalment of the gathering next year.
Fijilive
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