TEHRAN, October 25 - Japan's prime minister travels to Beijing on Thursday for his first formal bilateral summit with Chinese leaders in seven years as the Asian rivals seek to build on a thaw in ties against a backdrop of trade friction with Washington.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - China has stepped up its outreach to Japan and others as it has locked horns over trade with the United States.
Japan, worried about China's growing naval power, is keen for smooth economic ties with its biggest trading partner. It must manage that rapprochement without upsetting its key security ally, the United States, with which it has trade problems of its own.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who returned to power in 2012 when Sino-Japanese ties were in tatters due to a feud over East China Sea islands, has met Chinese President Xi Jinping many times since their first chilly conversation in 2014 on the sidelines of a regional summit in Beijing.
But his meeting with Xi on Friday will be the first full-scale Sino-Japanese summit since 2011.
"Through this visit, I want to raise relations between the two countries to a new level," Abe said ahead of his departure.
Abe will meet Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday and attend a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of a peace and friendship treaty. Both sides hope more visits will follow.
"If Xi promises to come to Japan next year, that would be very big," said Kiyoyuki Seguchi, research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo.
"If that is realized, the improvement in Japan-China relations will accelerate."
A slew of agreements are expected, from a currency swap arrangement and a new dialogue on innovation and intellectual property protection to better communication between their militaries.
Source: Reuters
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