JAPAN:Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and China's premier, Wen Jiabao, agreed yesterday to build a "beautiful future" together after the first visit by a Chinese leader to Japan in seven years. Wartime crimes however still cast a shadow over warmer relations between the two Asian powers.
Both leaders gave a relaxed impression at a banquet. They emphasised the close cultural links between the two neighbours and their shared history, rather than dwelling on the bitter debates over what China sees as Japan's failure to atone for atrocities during the Japanese occupation and the second World War.
"In today's meeting with premier Wen, we were able to agree to push forward many specific points of co-operation towards building a mutually beneficial strategic relationship," Mr Abe said in a jovial speech.
China has found it far easier to deal with Japan since Mr Abe's appointment and this visit has been called the "ice-breaker" in relations between Beijing and Tokyo.
Sino-Japanese relations bordered on the hostile under Mr Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who made annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, raising hackles across China.
In a joint statement issued after their talks, China and Japan agreed to confront history and look ahead to open the path for a "beautiful future" in bilateral relations. While the two have sparred in the political arena in recent years, their economies remain deeply connected. Including Hong Kong, China is already Japan's biggest trade partner with total two-way trade adding up to about €180 billion.
The two countries agreed to strengthen co-operation on energy and environmental protection.
A major bone of contention has been the development of oil and gas fields in disputed waters in the East China Sea. On this issue they pledged to speed up talks and report back by autumn.
Japan offered to use new equipment to speed up the process of disposing chemical weapons abandoned by its army during the second World War, a proposal welcomed by China.
While the atmosphere was one of harmony, the prospect of divisive visits to the Yasukuni shrine heightened tensions at the banquet. Mr Abe paid his respects at the shrine before taking office, but has pointedly refused to say whether he would follow Mr Koizumi and visit as prime minister.
Mr Abe's core support is among Japanese conservatives, who demand he visit the shrine, just as they did with Mr Koizumi, so history could yet undo the new common ground discovered by these two Asian superpowers.