China, Japan look to make progress on talks
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-22 19:20

Japan's trade minister said Tuesday he is determined to make progress in settling bitter disputes with China this week during the highest-level talks between the two nations since relations soured last October.

Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai will meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The trip is an effort to repair ties severely frayed by disputes over issues such as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's much-publicized visits to a Tokyo shrine that honors war dead, including convicted war criminals.

The Yasukuni Shrine visits have drawn repeated criticism from China, which was invaded and occupied by Japan in the first half of the 20th century.

"It is not only the Yasukuni problem," Nikai told reporters Tuesday after arriving in Beijing. "There are various other problems that Japan and China have to resolve. So, I would like to have a frank exchange of views." He did not elaborate.

The meeting with Wen will be the highest-level contact between the countries since Koizumi enraged Beijing in October by worshipping at Yasukuni.

China and other neighboring countries say the visits glorify Japan's wartime imperialism.

Japanese news reports said the first order of business for the trade ministers will be a conflict over gas exploration in the East China Sea.

China has extracted gas from one of several fields in the East China Sea, triggering protests from Japan, which fears the reserves might run dry.

Previous talks aimed at resolving the issue have made scant progress, and Nikai said he was determined to change that.

"Since this is a good chance, I would like to negotiate as much as possible," he said.

Koizumi said earlier Tuesday he hoped the talks would help chart a path for better relations between the two countries.

"I am an advocate of friendly relations between China and Japan," he told reporters.

Still, he refused to rule out further visits to the shrine.

China-Japan relations also have been damaged by a dispute over the death of a Japanese consulate worker in Shanghai and differing interpretations of Japan's pre-World War II invasion of China.