China, Japan see 'turning point' in leaders' summit (Roundup)

Oct 8, 2006, 18:20 GMT

Beijing - Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hailed their summit on Sunday as a 'turning point' in bilateral relations, which had cooled after Chinese leaders refused to meet Abe's predecessor for five years.

'I'm convinced that this visit to China has proven to be a turning point that will lead relations between China and Japan to a higher level,' Abe told reporters after his talks with Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao.

He said the two sides agreed to 'build a strategic relationship of mutual benefit', while Hu echoed Abe's assesment of the importance of the talks.

'Your ongoing visit is serving as a turning point in China-Japan relations and I hope it would also serve as a new starting point for the improvement and development of bilateral ties,' state media quoted Hu as telling Abe during talks in Beijing.

Hu said Abe's choice of China for his first overseas visit showed that he 'has attached great importance to the improvement and development of relations between the two neighbours.'

Wen told Abe that bilateral relations faced 'both new opportunities of development and lots of challenges', the government's official Xinhua news agency said.

He said the issue of Japanese leaders visiting the controversial Yasukuni war shrine must be 'properly solved', and that 'politcal obstacles' must be 'removed in line with the consensus reached between the two nations.'

'Promises must be kept and action must be resolute' to guarantee the improvement of bilateral ties, Wen said.

Abe said he again declined to make any statement about his intentions to visit Yasukuni, which he has visited in the past.

'Whether I have [visited] or will visit Yasukuni, that is not something that I shall make clear,' he said.

'Since this is a matter that has been turned into a political and diplomatic issue, I shall not elaborate.

'This explanation that I made [on visiting the shrine], I believe, was understood by the Chinese side.'

The leaders of China and Japan had not met since former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001 visit to Yasukuni, which honours Japan's war dead, including 14 class-A war criminals convicted after World War II.

Earlier this year, Hu highlighted Koizumi's visits to the shrine as the 'major obstacle in the China-Japan relationship.'

China wants Abe to make a public promise not to visit the shrine but Abe has said that he will decide on future visits with his 'heart.'

Abe said the two sides agreed on Sunday that they could 'never tolerate' a nuclear test by North Korea and pledged cooperation to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its plans.

'We saw eye-to-eye that North Korea's announcement that it plans to conduct a nuclear test can never be tolerated,' Abe said of his talks with Hu.

'We need to prevent a nuclear test by North Korea,' Abe said. 'Japan and China should cooperate with each other and exercise their respective influence.'

The fact that he and Hu were united in opposition to any nuclear test should send a 'strong message' to North Korea, he said.

Abe's trip to Beijing is the first part of what he calls a new 'proactive diplomacy' for Japan.

In his recent policy address to the Japanese parliament, Abe said Japan's close economic ties to China and South Korea made the improvement of diplomatic relations 'extremely important for the Asian region and the entire international community.'

The value of Japan's exports to China soared to 80 billion dollars in 2005, with imports from China reaching 108 billion dollars, according to Japanese statistics.

In a joint communique issued after Abe's talks on Sunday, the two sides agreed to expand cooperation in key areas such as energy, environmental protection, finance, information technology and the protection of intellectual property rights.

Abe was scheduled to fly to South Korea early Monday for similar talks in Seoul.