Japan and China pledge better ties

The leaders of Japan and China have pledged to improve ties after weeks of escalating disputes, easing tension but not resolving some critical problems besieging relations between East Asia's big powers.

After a 55-minute meeting Saturday on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit conference here, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan said both sides had agreed to look beyond disagreements and focus on the future.

But speaking at a separate news conference, China's top leader, Hu Jintao, sounded less optimistic, saying that Japan needed to reflect on its past and warning Tokyo not to meddle in its internal affairs by supporting Taiwan.

Both sides appeared to soften their positions. Koizumi did not insist on an apology or compensation for anti-Japanese vandalism in China, as Japanese diplomats had earlier. Hu did not directly demand that Koizumi stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined among Japan's war dead, as he had in their previous meeting, in November.
"We were able to confirm at the meeting that rather than criticizing each other's past shortcomings and aggravating antagonistic feelings, we should make efforts to develop the bilateral friendship," Koizumi said. "The Japan-China friendship is beneficial not only for the two countries but also for Asia and the international community," he added.

Hu also stressed the importance of the relationship. "At the moment Sino-Japanese relations face a difficult situation," he said. "Such a difficult situation is not one we want to see. It would be detrimental to China and Japan and would affect stability and development in Asia."
With the Chinese government ordering an end to anti-Japanese marches last week, the meeting appeared to cap three weeks of rising tension that was as much about history as over influence in this region. The marches in China focused on Japanese junior high school textbooks that whitewash Japan's militarism, as well as Tokyo's bid to become a permanent member of an enlarged United Nations Security Council.

On Friday, Koizumi delivered the most public apology in a decade over Japan's aggression in Asia, allowing the Chinese to accept the meeting with Koizumi.

Hu expressed his displeasure at Tokyo's recent declaration with Washington that Taiwan was a common security issue in light of China's growing military power. But he appeared to soften his tone regarding Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

"I would like you to recognize history correctly and I would like you to translate your reflection into concrete action," Hu told Koizumi during their talk, said a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Akira Chiba, who was at the meeting.


Raymond Bonner reported from Jakarta and Norimitsu Onishi from Tokyo.
Chinese textbooks criticized

Chinese textbooks are "extreme" in their interpretation of history, Japan's foreign minister said Sunday, The Associated Press reported from Tokyo.

Nobutaka Machimura said: "From the perspective of a Japanese person, Chinese textbooks appear to teach that everything the Chinese government has done has been correct." That is a tendency in any country, said, "but the Chinese textbooks are extreme in the way they uniformly convey the 'our country is correct' perspective." He said Japan's textbooks did not gloss over Japan's invasion of other Asian countries.

The leaders of Japan and China have pledged to improve ties after weeks of escalating disputes, easing tension but not resolving some critical problems besieging relations between East Asia's big powers.

After a 55-minute meeting Saturday on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit conference here, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan said both sides had agreed to look beyond disagreements and focus on the future.

But speaking at a separate news conference, China's top leader, Hu Jintao, sounded less optimistic, saying that Japan needed to reflect on its past and warning Tokyo not to meddle in its internal affairs by supporting Taiwan.