China's Wen set to woo Japanese parliament

Tokyo, Apr 12: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was due today to sell Japan's parliament his theme of a friendly China intent on peaceful development, a day after the two wary Asian powers agreed to seek more common ground.

On the first visit to Japan by a Chinese premier since 2000, Wen hopes to deepen a warming in long-strained ties begun with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's trip to Beijing in October.

Wen's speech looked set to echo a message to Abe that Beijing does not want confrontation over military plans, sea boundaries or energy and hopes to end rancour over Tokyo's history of invasion.

Wen will ''fully explain China's views on the development of Chinese-Japanese relations,'' to the National Diet, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said yesterday.

''In security, neither side should view the other as a threat or a challenge and engage in confrontation,'' Wen told Abe yesterday, according to Liu.

In his live-broadcast address, Wen must seek not only to persuade Japanese legislators Beijing wants no fight, but also reassure Chinese that concerns about Japan's bloody occupation in the decades up to 1945 have not been lightly sacrificed.

Sino-Japanese ties grew tense under Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who made annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, seen in Asia as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

It led Beijing into shunning top-level visits between the countries and helped fan popular anger at Japan that burst into sometimes violent mass protests in Chinese cities two years ago.

Abe paid respects at the shrine before taking office last September, but has not said if he will do so as prime minister.

In an interview last week, Wen pointedly pressed him not to go.

But there was no indication from China that Wen explicitly raised Yasukuni with Abe during their meeting.

''This is a major issue of principle that bears on the political foundation of Sino-Japanese ties,'' Wen told Abe.

Economy, Energy

Wen is also seeking to steer his country towards cleaner and more evenly spread growth that will ease pressure on resources, and his delegation is heavy with economic and energy officials who hope to absorb some of Japan's wealth and technology.

Today, Ma Kai, head of China's energy policy-setting National Development and Reform Commission, will address energy executives from both states. yesterday, Ma signed a deal with Japan's trade minister pledging more nuclear power cooperation.

But on one of the thorniest energy-related disputes -- a feud over oil and gas fields in disputed waters in the East China Sea -- Wen and Abe agreed only to speed up talks and seek a report on ways to jointly develop the resources by autumn.

Beijing and Tokyo disagree over the boundary between their exclusive economic zones, and Tokyo fears Chinese development may drain its resources.

Officials will also meet to iron out plans for high-level economic dialogue to address trade and investment concerns.

The two countries' economies are deeply intertwined. China including Hong Kong is Japan's biggest trade partner, ahead of the United States, with two-way trade totalling nearly 29 trillion yen last year.

Reuters