China wants cooperation, not conflict, with Japan

Beijing wants to establish a relationship with Japan based on “cooperation, not confr-ontation”, China’s foreign minister told his Japanese counterpart on Saturday.

Various territorial and historical disputes have soured bilateral relations in the past, but they have thawed more recently.

Fumio Kishida was on a three-day visit to China — the first by a Japanese foreign minister in four and a half years. “We certainly wish to develop healthy, stable and friendly relations with Japan,” said China’s foreign minister Wang Yi at a meeting with Mr Kishida.

But he added: “This relationship must be built on the basis of an honest view of history, respect for promises, and cooperation, not on confrontation.”

Beijing and Tokyo are embroiled in a fierce dispute over the sovereignty of uninhabited territories in the East China Sea — islands administered by Japan as the Senkaku, but claimed by China under the name Diaoyu.

“We really want to regain relations in which we can visit each other frequently,” Mr Kishida said during the meeting, which was broadcast on Japanese television. “The two countries need each other at a time when uncertainties are growing in the international economy,” he was quoted as saying by the Japanese news agency Jiji.