Statist Crims Mending Fences

Subject: Statist Crims Mending Fences Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:59 am

Friday, 28 December 2007, 05:25 GMT

China and Japan PMs hold summit

Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda has held talks in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao.

The talks come on the first full day of Mr Fukuda's visit to China - his first since taking office in September.

Mr Wen said China and Japan had established a sound working relationship. Mr Fukuda described their talks as a "heart-to-heart dialogue".

The visit comes amid signs of a diplomatic thaw, following decades of rivalry and historical tensions.

In recent months a Chinese warship dropped anchor in Tokyo Bay for the first time since World War II.

Hope for progress

After his arrival in Beijing on Thursday, Mr Fukuda said he would use the trip to promote co-operation on a range of issues, including ways to combat global warming.

He also hopes to make progress on a bitter dispute over rights to gas fields in the East China Sea.

China's military growth is another key issue, with Japanese officials having repeatedly expressed concerns about China's increased military spending in recent years.

Mr Fukuda's trip is the first by a Japanese prime minister since October last year, when his predecessor Shinzo Abe broke a freeze by travelling to Beijing within days of taking office.

China refused high-level contact with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, after he started making annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine - a place the Chinese believe glorifies past militarism.

Relations between the two countries began to improve after Mr Koizumi stepped down.

Mr Fukuda has said he will not visit the controversial shrine while he is prime minister and has called for Japan to be humble about its past.

The BBC's Quentin Somerville in Shanghai says the Chinese government has in the past stoked widespread anti-Japanese feeling.

However, no senior figures from Beijing attended the recent commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing massacre, a sign he says that perhaps the two countries might be ready to move on.

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Statist Crims Mending Fences

Statist Crims Mending Fences

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