Tokyo – Strengthening a fragile détente, Japanese and Chinese leaders meeting in Tokyo pledged Wednesday to work together on North Korea, energy development and the environment, while defusing thorny disputes over history and territory.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is on the first visit to Japan by a Chinese leader in nearly seven years, building on a trip by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Beijing last year to salvage seriously damaged ties.
The two declared firm intentions to move forward on rebuilding relations, signing agreements on energy and the environment and issuing a joint statement that laid out a series of issues for the countries to cooperate on.
“We must build future-oriented and stable Japan-China relations,” Abe said at a banquet in Wen’s honor.
Wen said he expected his three-day visit to be a success: “Japan and China are at a crossroads where we must inherit the past while opening up the future.”
They signed a series of agreements. An environmental accord called for the two to work on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change by 2013. China’s emissions are not capped under the Kyoto pact, but they are a rising concern as the economy rapidly expands.
The other agreement committed Japan and China to cooperate on developing energy resources.
In the joint statement, the two vowed to seek ways to jointly develop gas deposits in disputed waters, pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and cooperate on intellectual property rights.
In an important nod to Tokyo, Beijing offered understanding and sympathy for Japan’s “humanitarian concerns” regarding North Korea – a reference to Japan’s demand for resolution of Pyongyang’s kidnappings of Japanese citizens.
The visit was a high-profile follow-up to Abe’s landmark summit with Chinese leaders in Beijing in October, which stanched a downward spiral in ties that had troubled the region and Japan’s top ally, the United States.
Wen arrived just hours after the two countries signed an accord lifting Beijing’s four-year ban on Japanese rice imports. China banned imports in 2003, claiming Japanese rice did not qualify for its tightened quarantine system.
The Chinese premier was scheduled to give a speech to parliament and meet with business leaders and the emperor today, and even join in a game of baseball with college students in western Japan on Friday before returning to China.
