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China's foreign minister has called for friendly ties with Japan on a feel-good visit to Tokyo aimed at further repairing a relationship strained just months ago.
Li Zhaoxing was due later in the day to meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who launched a reconciliation drive by visiting Beijing in October shortly after taking office.
Addressing a luncheon of Japan-China friendship groups, Li said he hoped the momentum would last and only gently touched upon the two countries' many disputes.
“The two countries need to develop a friendly relationship. Now is an important time for that,” Li said.
He said that China wanted to work with Japan to resolve one of their most intractable disputes — the East China Sea.
The Asian powers, which are two of the world's top energy importers, contest gas reserves in the sea. Earlier this month Japan protested surveillance activities by a Chinese vessel in the area.
“We will make efforts to make the East China Sea a sea of peace, cooperation and friendship,” Li said.
Li is preparing the groundwork for a visit to Tokyo in April by Premier Wen Jiabao, the first by a Chinese leader to Japan since 2000.
In talks earlier Friday with Hidenao Nakagawa, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Li was quoted as saying that he hoped for progress on the sea dispute during Wen's visit.
Japan's ties with China and South Korea were badly strained during the 2001-2006 tenure of then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, primarily over his repeated visits to a controversial war shrine.
The two countries see the Yasukuni shrine, which honors war dead and war criminals alike, as a symbol of Japan's past imperialism.
Abe, despite being known throughout his career as a hardliner on history issues, has put the issue on the backburner by refusing to say if he will go to the shrine.
Li also avoided sensitive topics in his public remarks in Tokyo.
Japan's former foreign minister Masahiko Komura told Li at the luncheon that he hoped the two countries can work out problems.
“Although private groups are making efforts to resolve problems between Japan and China, there are some things that only governments can do,” Komura said. “I hope you have frank discussions on how to develop cooperation between Japan and China.”
Li replied: “China has an interest in these problems that Mr Komura referred to, for example the history issue, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Lugou Bridge Incident and the 35th anniversary of Japan and China restoring diplomatic ties.”
The Lugou Bridge Incident, also known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, was a July 1937 battle near Beijing that set off Japan's full-fledged invasion of China.
Li did not mention a much more sensitive anniversary coming up in December — that of Japanese troops' 1937 massacre of the Chinese city of Nanjing.
In his talks on Thursday, Li was quoted as promising to help Japan address its concerns over North Korea.
Japan has refused to fund a six-nation pact this week on shutting North Korea's nuclear facilities due to a dispute over Pyongyang's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians.
