'Disturbance' only harms China, Japan: Fu Ying

Fu Ying, chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress, makes a speech at a Saturday luncheon of the 11th semiofficial Beijing-Tokyo Forum, in Beijing, Oct 24, 2015. [Photo/huanqiu.com]

E. Asia should cooperate to overcome strife and regain momentum, senior official says

A senior Chinese official said neither China nor Japan benefits from increased tensions in the region and should strive to eliminate them through cooperation.

Fu Ying, chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress, made the comments at a Saturday luncheon of the 11th semiofficial Beijing-Tokyo Forum, an annual gathering.

At the forum, which convened over the weekend, senior officials and policy insiders from both countries, including Fu, called for cooperation - rather than coercion - between the two largest Asian economies at a time when tasks are mounting, not decreasing.

Fu said that the East Asian cooperation of China, South Korea, Japan and the 10 ASEAN countries in recent years "has become less glamorous in comparison with the past", and that the major factor is "the disturbance brought by flaring regional disputes and the increased complexities prompted by US rebalancing to Asia, which high-lights security".

"A backward trend in the East Asian cooperation platform will undermine the competitiveness of the region, and neither China nor Japan would benefit from it," Fu said, calling for both sides to work together to push the region to "regain" momentum.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda recalled the past year, saying that "the robust growth of Asia was overshadowed, the aging population is approaching the region while there is no major change of the hostilities within it".