China and Japan pledge closer ties

Strengthening a fragile detente, 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. "We want to expand our common interests through strengthening dialogue in various fields."

Wen said he expected his three-day visit to be a success.

"We must keep up the momentum toward building friendly ties that have been forged between the governments and peoples of the two countries," he said. "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.

The declaration also made a veiled reference to the bitter dispute over wartime history. China still nurses resentment over Japanese invasions in the 1930s and 1940s, while Japanese nationalists accuse Beijing of exaggerating accounts of atrocities for political gain.

"We resolve to face up to history and open up good, forward-looking relations toward a beautiful future," the statement said.

In an important nod to Tokyo, Beijing also 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 staunched a downward spiral in ties that had troubled the region and Japan's top ally, the United States.

The two neighbors have good reasons to grow closer. China, including Hong Kong, is Japan's No. 1 trading partner and Japanese companies are eager for access to Chinese consumers and labor. China, meanwhile, seeks Japanese investment and technology transfers.

While the emphasis was on cooperation, both leaders broached areas of concern.

Wen, for instance, warned that history could be an obstacle to improved ties if not handled well, while Abe urged China to be more transparent about its troubling surge in military spending. Wen assured Abe that Beijing would use its armed forces only for national security, Japanese officials said.

Wen also pointed out the dispute over gas deposits in the East China Sea. The two countries have not demarcated their exclusive economic zones in the area, and Japan has objected to Chinese exploitation of the deposits, saying some of the gas belongs to Japan. Joint talks so far have achieved little.

"One of the remaining problems is the issue of the East China Sea," Wen said, quoted by Hiroshige Seko, an Abe adviser.

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 on Thursday, and even join in a game of baseball with college students in western Japan on Friday before returning to China.

Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, had put China relations into the deep freeze with repeated visits to a Tokyo shrine honoring Japanese war dead, including executed war criminals.

Abe moved quickly to repair ties with visits to Beijing and Seoul in October, only weeks after taking office. In his meeting with Wen, Abe said he hoped to visit China again this year, and invited Chinese President Hu Jintao to come to Japan next year, officials said.

But the wartime past was still a potentially divisive issue. Earlier this week, Japanese nationalist textbook writers released an open letter to Wen, challenging him to furnish proof of the 1937 Nanking massacre, in which Japanese troops killed thousands of civilians. China claims the death toll reached 300,000.

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Associated Press writer Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo also contributed to this report.