Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe praised warming ties with China on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) first visit to the country in a decade, even as he raised a long list of complaints including unfair business practices and Chinese coast guard activity around disputed islands.
Xi met Abe shortly after arriving in Osaka on Thursday, as Asia’s two largest economies seek to preserve economic ties amid trade fights and renewed territorial tensions.
He had last come to Japan as vice president in 2009, while the last top Chinese leader to visit was then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2010.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I want to open up a new age of Japan-China relations hand in hand with President Xi,” Abe told reporters as the leaders met in Osaka on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
He invited Xi to visit Japan next year “when the cherry trees are in blossom, and raise Japan-China ties to the next level.”
Xi said it was a good idea.
While Xi is set for a potentially pivotal meeting with US President Donald Trump today, he is poised for a warm welcome from other G20 leaders.
Xi’s meetings with Abe — including dinner on Thursday — marked the latest high point in a years-long effort to repair relations after an old dispute over East China Sea islands flared in 2012.
The visit underscores Abe’s struggle to balance Japan’s reliance on China as its largest export market and the US as its sole treaty ally.
Even as the two leaders prepared for the visit, the number of Chinese coast guard ships sailing in and around what Japan sees as its territorial waters in the East China Sea reached its highest level in three years.
Abe touched on many of the most difficult issues overshadowing the bilateral relationship in their meeting, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters.
Abe urged Xi to curb the activity of Chinese ships around the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as the Senkakus in Japan, also raised international concerns about militarization in the South China Sea.
The leaders agreed to cooperate on natural resources based on a 2008 accord and to develop free and open trade, Nishimura said, although Abe also urged Xi to take action, including on market-distorting subsidies, strengthening protection for intellectual property and tackling forced technology transfers.
Referring to a standoff in Hong Kong over a proposed extradition treaty, Abe emphasized the importance of a free and open Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” principle, Nishimura said.
He also raised the issue of the human rights of the Uighur and other groups in China, Nishimura said.
Abe raised the issues even as he seeks to maintain a friendly atmosphere by restoring a pattern of mutual visits that ceased after Japan purchased some of the disputed East China Sea islands in 2012, prompting protests in China.
In October last year, he became the first Japanese prime minister to pay an official visit to China since 2011.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) made his first trip to Japan in that role in May last year.
Xi was supportive of efforts to improve ties between Japan and North Korea, Nishimura told reporters.
Japan has floated the possibility of a summit between Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with little to show for it so far.
At a separate meeting, Abe and Trump affirmed that the two allies had no plans to review their joint security agreement, Nishimura said.
The US and Japan agreed to continue trade talks to reach a “win-win” agreement at an early date, he added.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of