Home>News Center>World
         
 

China-Japan talks top Asia-Europe meet
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-07 09:13

KYOTO, Japan - North Korea's nuclear threat and deep divides over Tokyo's wartime past will be in focus on Saturday when foreign ministers of China and Japan meet.

Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxin (L) and Chinese ambassador to Japan Wangyi(R) listen with earphones at the Asia-Europe Meeting in Kyoto March 6, 2005. [Xinhua]
Japan's Nobutaka Machimura will talk to China's Li Zhaoxing on the sidelines of an Asia-Europe gathering in Japan.

It is the first high-level meeting since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, at a summit last month, soothed ties that had worsened in a row over how new Japanese school books portrayed the country's wartime role.

Koizumi had made a rare public apology for suffering caused by Japan's past military aggression the day before his meeting with Hu, but feuds and mutual mistrust remain unresolved.

Such tensions could put at risk growing economic ties between the two Asian giants which generated nearly $170 billion worth of trade in 2004.

Machimura is also likely to urge Beijing to strive harder to persuade North Korea to resume six-country talks on its nuclear program amid fears the North may be preparing for an atomic test.

North Korea already dominated Friday's first day of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Kyoto. ASEM groups 38 countries accounting for 60 percent of world trade.

Machimura told his counterparts from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Korea and China that patience was wearing thin nearly a year after a third round of six-party talks ended inconclusively.

The United States has made clear it would consider taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council -- a prelude to possible sanctions -- if North Korea refused to resume the talks.

North Korea, which said in February it had nuclear weapons, has said sanctions would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Machimura echoed the U.S. stance on Friday. "We need to think about the Security Council as a next option," he told reporters.

U.S. officials have said they believe Pyongyang has already amassed enough fissile material to make six to eight bombs and recent media reports suggest the North may be preparing to escalate the crisis with a nuclear test.



 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

President's Russian trip to fortify partnership

 

   
 

PFP leader calls to remember ancestral roots

 

   
 

Ping-pong team enters 100-gold club

 

   
 

China-Japan talks top Asia-Europe meet

 

   
 

China's minister cools yuan revalue talk

 

   
 

Holiday week lashed by deadly storms

 

   
  Market, police bus blasts kill 25 in Iraq
   
  Blair's Labour Party wins re-election
   
  US Marines land on Somali coast to hunt militants
   
  S.Korea's Roh asks Japan not to undercut apologies
   
  British anti-war candidate blasts Blair over Iraq
   
  US general demoted in Abu Ghraib scandal
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
Japan, S.Korea ties improving but tensions stay
   
Japan may protest to France over reactor-report
   
S.Korean FM in Japan for fence-mending talks
   
Five feared dead in Japanese police copter crash
   
China, Japan need dialogue
   
Japan must honour its word on TW: Comment
   
Japanese PM says yen loans to Pakistan to resume
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement