BEIJING (AP) — A senior envoy handed China’s leader a
letter from Japan’s prime minister Friday in the countries’ highest-level
contact since tensions spiked in September over an island dispute, but the
meeting yielded little beyond commitments to talk again.
The contents of Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s letter to Chinese leader Xi Jingping were not made public, but the
meeting in Beijing was cordial and appeared to lessen some of the intensity of
the dispute, which has raised concerns in recent weeks over a possible armed
conflict.
Xi told the envoy, senior
lawmaker Natsuo Yamaguchi, that China attached “great importance” to his visit,
held in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People following four months of rising
friction and the dispatch of fighter jets by both sides to skies near the
disputed islands.
“Mr. Yamaguchi visits China at a
period in which China-Japan relations face a special situation,” Xi said,
before reporters were asked to leave the meeting.
Yamaguchi later told reporters
that both men emphasized the need for discussion and to respond calmly to the
present situation. He said they also discussed another high-level meeting in
preparation for a possible summit between Xi and Abe, but gave no indication
when that might happen.
Yamaguchi leads New Komeito, the
junior party in Abe’s ruling coalition, but is not a member of the government.
He arrived on Tuesday and met earlier with lower-ranking officials including
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and the head of the ruling Communist Party’s
international department.
Tensions soared after Japan’s
government bought the uninhabited islands, known in Chinese as Diaoyu and
Japanese as Senkaku, from their private Japanese owners in September.
Both sides have since called for
dialogue to avoid an armed confrontation, although Japan has rejected China’s
demand that it acknowledge a sovereignty dispute, with Tokyo arguing that it is
clear the islands belong to Japan.
The islands are surrounded by
rich fishing grounds and a potential wealth of gas, oil and other undersea
resources. For Chinese, the dispute has also reawakened bitter memories of
Japan’s conquest of Chinese territory beginning in 1895 and its brutal World
War II occupation.
Placed under U.S. control after
World War II, the islands were returned to Japan in 1972, although Beijing says
they have been Chinese territory for centuries. Taiwan also claims the islands.
Japan’s nationalization of the
islands sparked violent anti-Japanese rioting in China and prompted Beijing to
dispatch marine surveillance ships to them on a regular basis to confront
Japanese coast guard cutters assigned to protect the area.
Trade and tourism between the
countries have dropped off sharply and almost all bilateral meetings were
canceled.
Earlier this month, both sides
scrambled fighter jets to trail each other’s planes — underscoring the
potential for accidents or miscalculations sparking a clash that could draw in
Japan’s treaty partner the United States.
In a commentary issued as
Friday’s meeting was taking place, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said
Japan had sparked the crisis and must take the first steps in restoring trust.
While acknowledging Japan’s desire for talks, it said progress in ties would
depend on tangible actions.
“On the one hand, the Japanese
government stressed the importance of its relationship with China. On the
other, it still stubbornly sticks to its wrong stance on the Diaoyu Islands
issue,” Xinhua said.
On Thursday, Japanese ships
prevented activists from Taiwan from landing on the disputed islands.
Far away from the disputed area,
Japan on Thursday detained a Chinese fishing boat and eight crew members for
illegal fishing off Nagasaki prefecture.
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