Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi (吳儀) went on a charm offensive yesterday at Japan's World Exposition, saying Beijing could learn from Tokyo's creative example, as the two sides moved to patch up tattered ties.
China, which has said its relations with Japan are at their worst in 30 years, dispatched Wu, an experienced negotiator, for China's day at the six-month Expo but also to hold talks with Japanese officials.
Wu greeted and thanked an audience of hundreds in Japanese at the event in central Aichi province as she stayed clear of controversies between the two nations, such as memories of Japan's occupation of China and energy disputes.
"I felt the wisdom and the creativity of the Japanese people as I went around the Aichi Expo," she told a ceremony that included young people waving the two countries' flags.
"I believe the experience of Japan will be a very important reference to make the Shanghai Expo better."
She presented a performance of Chinese opera and acrobatics and later toured the Chinese pavilion at the Expo, a showcase of technology and innovation with displays by 121 countries under the theme of sustainable development.
Keiko Morisaki, 51, a local housewife, said she enjoyed the dancing and was heartened to hear Chinese and Japanese spectators try to speak to one another.
"Whatever anti-Japanese movements there are [in China], I think among individual people things can work better," she said.
China made a major investment in its pavilion, which features a three-dimensional display on Chinese art and history and could foreshadow the look of the next World Expo to be held in five years in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Expo will come in the same year that Beijing hosts the summer Olympics, an event seen as symbolizing China's rising world clout.
Tokyo hosted the Olympics in 1964 and Osaka was the site of a World Exposition in 1970, cementing Japan's image as an economic and technological power recovered from its defeat in World War II. Wu attended the ceremony with Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, known as a hardliner on China, who said, "I'm happy to pass the baton on to the Shanghai Expo."
Wu late Wednesday addressed local business leaders in Nagoya, the main city in the major industrial center of Aichi, and proposed that the neighbors and major economic partners start talks on a free-trade agreement.
"Trade cooperation benefits both countries," she said.
Nakagawa, addressing reporters at the business meeting, said of Wu's proposal only that China needed to improve its infrastructure, including its legal framework, such as copyright protection. Wu was due to meet in Tokyo with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi toward the end of her eight-day visit.
Yesterday, Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara was due to head to a rock islet in the Pacific that is at the center of a row with China to exert Japanese sovereignty.
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