Japan, China seek warmer ties against backdrop of US trade friction
TOKYO (Reuters) - 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 the backdrop of trade friction with Washington.
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.
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 realised, 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.
Japan also hopes for progress towards implementing a 2008 agreement on jointly developing gasfields in disputed waters, and wants China to ease import limits on produce from areas affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
A business forum on private sector cooperation in third countries is expected to yield some 50 non-binding agreements, including one on a project in Thailand, a Japanese government source said.
China may be hoping that Abe makes a positive statement about its Belt and Road initiative, a vehicle to fund and build transport and trade links in more than 60 countries.