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Wen expects closer ties with Japan

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-10 07:41

Premier Wen Jiabao praised the incoming Japanese prime minister's attitude to the Yasukuni Shrine Wednesday and called for closer cooperation in the latest sign of warming ties between the two big Asian economies.

The Democratic Party of Japan swept the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from power in an election late last month and has vowed to seek better ties with the country's neighbors.

Democrat leader, Yukio Hatoyama, virtually assured of becoming prime minister, has pledged not to visit the shrine while Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals are honored at the site. Many of Japan's neighbors see the Tokyo site as an offensive symbol of past military aggression.

China welcomed this step and Premier Wen's comments, reported by the Xinhua news agency, underscored hopes for smoother relations.

"China appreciates the Japanese Democratic Party's positive attitude towards relations with China, and is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with Japan's new Cabinet, enhancing mutual confidence," Xinhua quoted Wen as saying.

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The report said Wen made the remarks to a visiting Japanese business group.

Japan and China are respectively the world's second and third biggest economies and both appear eager to focus on building mutual trade and trust and downplaying frictions over wartime history, military policy and sea boundaries. Bilateral trade grew to $266.4 billion in 2008, a rise of 12.5 percent on 2007, making China the top two-way trade partner for Japan.

On Tuesday, China said it would host the new Japanese prime minister at a trilateral summit later in the year with South Korea. Hatoyama is set to be voted in as Japanese prime minister by parliament next Wednesday.

Under the LDP, Japan's ties with China veered between icy hostility and wary reconciliation.Relations sank to their coldest in decades under Junichiro Koizumi, who during his mandate from 2001 to 2006 repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine.

Koizumi's LDP successors stayed away from Yasukuni and relations with Beijing warmed. But analysts suggest that even under the new government, relations between the two countries will not be free of friction.

The renewed goodwill has served to contain, rather than resolve, a dispute over natural gas beds under seas between the two countries and Japan is likely to remain wary of China's continued military modernization.

Reuters