BEIJING, Nov.08:(AFP) - The foreign ministers of
China and Japan held their first formal talks in more than two years Saturday,
a day after the Asian powers agreed to reduce tensions over territorial and
historical disputes.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Japanese
counterpart Fumio Kishida met on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, reports in both countries said.
The meeting, the first at such a level since
September 2012, just before ties soured over an escalating territorial dispute,
came after Tokyo and Beijing agreed on a four-point accord to improve their
relationship.
Wang called the agreement "a major
step" in talks with Kishida, Xinhua said. Kishida, meanwhile, said the
talks were meaningful. "This created an important momentum to shift gears
to bring Japan-China relations back to a normal track," he said in remarks
shown on Japanese national broadcaster NHK.
He said he had stressed the importance of a
meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi
Jinping, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.
Friday's agreement was widely seen as setting the
stage for a summit between the two leaders on the sidelines of the upcoming
APEC summit in Beijing, though no official announcement had yet been made.
The neighbours have not held a summit since
December 2011 when then prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visited Beijing. Wang and
Kishida only held informal meetings in August on the sidelines of a regional
gathering in Myanmar, and during the UN General Assembly in New York in
September.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to
reporters, welcomed the Asian powers' Friday deal."We think that any steps
that the two countries can take to improve the relationship and reduce the tensions
is helpful not just to those two countries but it's helpful to the
region," Kerry said.
- Sovereignty dispute? -
Relations between the world's second- and third-largest economies have
plunged in the face of rows over disputed islands in the East China Sea and
Japan's 20th-century aggression against China.
A key point of contention is that Tokyo has long
refused to formally acknowledge that there is a sovereignty dispute over the
islands, which it controls and calls the Senkakus, but which are claimed by
Beijing as the Diaoyus.
The Chinese statement Friday said the two
"acknowledged that different positions exist between them regarding the
tensions" over the islands, while the Japanese text said they
"recognised that they had different views as to the emergence of tense
situations".
Each used only their own name for the outcrops
but both said they would set up a "crisis management mechanism" to
keep the situation at bay.
Visits by Japanese politicians including Abe to
Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which honours Japan's war dead including convicted war
criminals, are another issue, and the statements said they would make efforts
to "overcome political difficulties" rooted in historical issues.
An editorial Saturday in China's nationalistic
Global Times tabloid Saturday, which is controlled by the Communist Party, said
the agreement amounted to Tokyo "admitting that the disputes over the
Diaoyu Islands' sovereignty have become the new reality". But Friday's
statements were carefully worded, and Japanese media insisted that they did not
amount to a recognition of a dispute over the islands. The conservative Yomiuri
Shimbun paper argued that Tokyo's reference to "different views" did
"not impair Japan's position so far that 'there is no territorial
dispute'". It quoted an anonymous "foreign ministry executive"
as saying: "The Japanese side has not made any concession on
territory."
- Security ally -
Speaking to reporters before meeting Kishida,
Wang suggested that any summit depended on Japan's actions regarding the
agreement. "We hope that the Japanese side could seriously treat this
consensus, implement it faithfully and honour its commitment and create the
necessary and favourable atmosphere for a meeting between the two
leaders," he said.
The long simmering tensions between the two
nations erupted two years ago when the Japanese government purchased from
private owners the islets in the chain it did not already own, prompting
vehement protests by Beijing and anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.
Increased patrols by ships and aircraft from the
two sides in the seas and skies around the rocky islets have raised fears of
armed clashes between the two powers. Kerry cautioned that the two sides have
plenty of work cut out for them to make the deal work.
"It's the outline of steps that now need to
be taken in order to really define how certain tensions are going to really be
resolved," Kerry said. The US is Japan's key security ally and treaty
bound to defend it in case of attack.
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