China, Japan try again to mend relations
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-23 11:34

A Chinese vice foreign minister took off for Japan on Thursday to try to halt a deterioration in relations after a previous high-profile visit was cut short over a row about Japan's wartime past.

Dai Bingguo will also try to maintain the momentum toward a new round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program.

China is furious at Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a controversial war shrine, which Beijing sees as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism and where convicted war criminals are honored with Japan's other war dead.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo (L) shakes hands with French President Jacques Chirac during a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris June 6, 2005 in Paris.[Reuters/file]

Thousands of Chinese took to the streets in April over Japan's wartime aggression, its bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, and the revision of a Japanese school history textbook which critics say whitewashes wartime atrocities.

The talks in Tokyo will be the most senior contact between Chinese and Japanese officials since Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi abruptly canceled a meeting with Koizumi on May 23 and returned home.

China originally said Wu left for an urgent domestic matter, but officials later made it clear it was a reaction to Koizumi's refusal to give up visits to the shrine.

Dai would meet Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi for the second round of Sino-Japanese strategic talks to discuss bilateral relations and issues of mutual concern, Xinhua news agency said.

The first round was held in Beijing on May 13 and 14.

The new round of talks comes as momentum gathers for a resumption of six-party negotiations, involving both China and Japan, on North Korea's nuclear program.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said late last week his country was willing to resume talks as early as July if the United States showed it respect.

The discussions, joining North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have been stalled for a year.

A senior Chinese Communist Party official told Reuters on Wednesday talks in July were a possibility.

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