Ruling Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Hidenao Nakagawa said Saturday that Japan and China should hold a bilateral summit before Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's term runs out in September.

"We should overcome the various issues and mutually take the risk to hold a summit meeting," Nakagawa said of the strained Sino-Japan relationship during a presentation in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.

He said it is also important for Koizumi's successor as LDP president and Japan's prime minister to make "uninterrupted efforts" to work on improving the two countries' ties, which have been strained largely over Koizumi's visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

Noting that Japan and China have recently been holding a number of minister-level talks, the chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council suggested that Beijing has begun to place importance on its relations with Tokyo.

"China understands that it needs to expand cooperation (with Japan) in areas other than the Yasukuni issue and we see the start of change toward placing importance on Japan," Nakagawa said.

China has refused to hold summit talks with Japan in protest of Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni, which enshrines Class-A war criminals along with the war dead. China and some other Asian countries see the Shinto shrine as symbolic of past Japanese militarism.

On the domestic economy, Nakagawa predicted that mid- to long-term economic policy will become a point of contention in September's LDP presidential election and urged those who will vie to fill Koizumi's post to come up with specific numerical targets.

The candidates "should make clear whether they aim for high economic growth or whether they say that is impossible," he said.