President Jiang Zemin of China began an important visit to Japan yesterday looking for a 21st century partnership between Asia's economic and military giants.
Mr Jiang, the first Chinese head of state to visit Japan, is on a delicate mission that aims to put Beijing-Tokyo ties on a firmer footing that would leave behind their second World War past and ease tensions over Japan-US security links.
The 72-year-old Chinese leader arrived from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk after a visit to Russia where he signed a border demarcation agreement with the ailing Russian President, Mr Yeltsin.
Hovering over the six-day visit are Chinese demands for a stronger and unequivocal apology from Tokyo for second World War atrocities and a "no compromise" statement about Taiwan.
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr Tang Jiaxuan, has been in Tokyo since Tuesday making last-ditch efforts to word an apology from Japan for atrocities it committed in China in the 1930s and 1940s.
Even before Mr Jiang's arrival, right-wing demonstrators were on the streets in about 20 vans equipped with loudspeakers protesting at a possibly more wholehearted apology by Japan to China.
Japanese officials have said Tokyo's apology would not go beyond what the then prime minister, Mr Tomiichi Murayama, said in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of Japan's defeat in the second World War. The only difference could be that Japan would apologise "directly" to the Chinese people.
In his apology for Japan's wartime rule, Mr Murayama said: "I express once more my heartfelt feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology."
The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Obuchi, would also make the apology in words only, rather than in a written statement wanted by China, they said.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper said the final wording of the apology, and its details, might have to wait for the Obuchi-Jiang summit talks being held today.
Yesterday security was tight in Tokyo with about 10,000 police spread through the streets.
However, the protest by right-wingers was far smaller than those in April, when Mr Yeltsin visited Japan.
Later in the evening, dozens of protesters in central Tokyo demanded China improve its human rights record and release prisoners of conscience. Mr Jiang said in an arrival statement: "This year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-China peace and friendship treaty. At this important period, we are looking to go forward from past Sino-Japanese relations and open the way for the future."
The two leaders will also discuss Asia's economic crisis and what role their nations can play in helping the region. The two nations' economies are entwined, with Japan being China's biggest trade partner and Beijing being Tokyo's second-biggest trade partner. China is also the biggest recipient of Japanese aid.
Another key feature of the summit will be China's worries about expanded Japan-US military ties, which, it fears, aim to protect Taiwan in the event of Chinese military action against the island, which Beijing views as a rebel province.
Mr Jiang will urge Japan to follow the path on Taiwan that President Clinton trod during his visit to China in July.
Mr Clinton told Mr Jiang in their summit that "we don't support independence for Taiwan, or `two Chinas' or `one Taiwan, one China', and we don't believe Taiwan should be a member in any organisation for which statehood is a requirement."