Japan, China meet to keep dialogue door open
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-10 21:09

"CONGENIAL ATMOSPHERE?"

In a commentary carried on Friday by the overseas edition of the People's Daily, Tsinghua University professor Liu Jiangyong said it was vital for the two countries to keep talking now.

But Liu added: "Yet, at the present stage it will be very difficult for this dialogue to solve the major, hard-to-handle issues between China and Japan. This is because currently Japan's policy is Prime Minister Koizumi's 'one-man band'.

Yachi and Dai were not expected to make any announcements after the talks end on Saturday.

"If they make the contents public, they can only restate their public positions, but they want to hear each other's real thinking," the Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said.

Dai met Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Thursday evening, but a brief Japanese statement said only that they had exchanged views in a "congenial" atmosphere.

In another sign that Tokyo wants to keep lines of communication open, ruling Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Hidenao Nakagawa -- seen as close to Koizumi -- plans to visit Beijing from February 19, Nakagawa's aides said earlier.

Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and other heads of groups promoting Japan-China friendship are also planning to travel to China in March, Japanese media reported.

Japanese business executives have expressed concern that the diplomatic chill could eventually harm economic ties with China, which replaced the United States as Japan's biggest trade partner in 2004, according to Japanese data.

Abe and Aso, potential contenders to succeed Koizumi, are both seen as hardliners on China, but Abe, the frontrunner, has been trying to soften his hawkish image recently.