Japan, China meet to keep dialogue door open

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) – Top diplomats from Japan and China met on
Friday in an effort to maintain dialogue despite a chill in
ties due to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to a war
shrine seen by Beijing as a symbol of Tokyo’s past militarism.

The talks between Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai
Bingguo and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi, are
the first at this level since October, when Koizumi last
visited the Yasukuni shrine where convicted war criminals are
honored along with Japan’s 2.5 million war dead.

The two top diplomats were to travel to Niigata in northern
Japan on Saturday, possibly to visit an “onsen” hot spring
resort, to continue their talks in a “relaxed” atmosphere, a
Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

In a sign of the bilateral tensions, Japanese Chief Cabinet
Secretary Shinzo Abe on Thursday criticized as “inappropriate”
a Chinese official’s comment that ties between the Asian
neighbors would not improve as long as Koizumi is prime
minister.

Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told a Japanese ruling
party lawmaker in Beijing on Wednesday that relations between
the Asian neighbors stood little chance of improving while
Koizumi remained in office, Kyodo news agency reported.

Many analysts believe Beijing has given up hope of a thaw
until Koizumi’s term as ruling party president, and hence prime
minister, ends in September.

“CONGENIAL ATMOSPHERE?”

In a commentary carried on Friday by the overseas edition
of the People’s Daily — the Chinese Communist Party’s official
mouthpiece — Tsinghua University professor Liu Jiangyong said
it was vital for the two countries to keep talking now.

But Liu added: “Yet, at the present stage it will be very
difficult for this dialogue to solve the major, hard-to-handle
issues between China and Japan. This is because currently
Japan’s policy is Prime Minister Koizumi’s ‘one-man band’.

Yachi and Dai were not expected to make any announcements
after the talks end on Saturday.

“If they make the contents public, they can only restate
their public positions, but they want to hear each other’s real
thinking,” the Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said.

Dai met Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Thursday
evening, but a brief Japanese statement said only that they had
exchanged views in a “congenial” atmosphere.

In another sign that Tokyo wants to keep lines of
communication open, ruling Liberal Democratic Party policy
chief Hidenao Nakagawa — seen as close to Koizumi — plans to
visit Beijing from February 19, Nakagawa’s aides said earlier.

Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and other heads of
groups promoting Japan-China friendship are also planning to
travel to China in March, Japanese media reported.

Japanese business executives have expressed concern that
the diplomatic chill could eventually harm economic ties with
China, which replaced the United States as Japan’s biggest
trade partner in 2004, according to Japanese data.

Abe and Aso, potential contenders to succeed Koizumi, are
both seen as hardliners on China, but Abe, the frontrunner, has
been trying to soften his hawkish image recently.