A new round of sub-cabinet-level talks between
China and Japan will open in Tokyo tomorrow, but Chinese
analysts expect "no breakthroughs" in the thawing of frosty
ties.
Leading the Chinese delegation is?Deputy Foreign Minister
Dai
Bingguo who will leave for Tokyo today to hold two-day talks
with Shotaro Yachi, Japan's vice foreign minister.
No specific topics have been officially unveiled, but Japan's
Kyodo News Agency reported that the talks are likely to touch on
the Japanese leader's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine where
14 convicted WWII Class-A war criminals are honored, and the
dispute over China's natural gas project in the East China Sea.
A major task for the talks is try to improve degenerating
China-Japan relations, without which the high-level meeting between
the two nations'?leaders cannot go on, according to Jin Xide,
a researcher on Japanese studies at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences.
"So we cannot expect any breakthroughs on a specific question if
it hinders the development of bilateral relations from the
fourth-round strategic talks," Jin told China Daily
yesterday.
China and Japan had three rounds of talks last year, the last
one taking place in Beijing in October.
The last round was stopped when Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which China, along
with other Asian countries, sees as a symbol of Japan's past
militarism.?
China-Japan relations have grown frigid since Koizumi took
office in 2001 and began his annual visits to the shrine.
Despite repeated requests by Beijing and Seoul to stop the
pilgrimages, Koizumi again visited the shrine in October, putting a
further strain on diplomatic ties.
Bilateral trade has been affected as a result.
Between January and August last year, trade volume between Japan
and China increased by 10.3 percent year on year, about 13 percent
less than the growth of trade with the EU, the US and South Korea,
which registered at 23.7, 24.9 and 25.7 percent respectively,
according to the Ministry
of Commerce.?
The key to improving bilateral ties is for Japanese leaders to
face up to wartime history and stop visiting the shrine, a move
that offends the Chinese people, said Guo Xiangang, an expert at
the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS).
The talks are significant because communication between the two
countries still functions. "I personally feel cautiously optimistic
about the outcome of the talks," he said.
(China Daily February 9, 2006)