China's Hu highlights hopes for Japan ties

BEIJING, June 20 (Reuters) Chinese President Hu Jintao held out hopes for closer ties with Japan, state media reported today, notably underplaying tensions over history and territorial claims.

Long-standing strains between Tokyo and Beijing have eased since Shinzo Abe became Japan's prime minister last year and visited China less than two weeks after taking office. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan in April, continuing what he called an ''ice-thawing'' improvement.

Disputes over economic zone boundaries in the East China Sea and Japan's handling of historical accounts of its invasion during the 1930s and '40s have continued to shadow relations.

But meeting with a 220-member Japanese delegation yesterday, Hu stressed hopes for further rapprochement.

''Developing long-term and stable neighbourly friendship and cooperation between China and Japan is the shared popular will,'' he said, according to the People's Daily.

''China-Japan relations face an important opportunity to develop and we must firmly grasp this opportunity.'' Hu urged ''using history as a mirror'', a stock phrase summarising Beijing's demand that Japan show public contrition for invading much of China and the rest of Asia before and during World War Two.

But the focus of his remarks was prospects for improved ties.

''Stick to appropriately settling disputes and conflicts through dialogue and consultation on an equal basis,'' he said.

Sino-Japanese relations had been icy for much of the past half-decade, largely because of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine for war dead. Beijing sees the shrine as a symbol of Japan's past militarism as some convicted war criminals are honoured there.

Abe has not visited the shrine as prime minister. But an undercurrent of tension has continued, with Abe sending a floral offering to Yasukuni and moving to revise his country's pacifist constitution so its defence forces can play a more active role.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who led the delegation that Hu greeted, was upbeat.

''Now relations between the two countries are advancing from a springtime to a summertime,'' Nakasone said.

Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan is likely to visit Japan later this year, and Hu may make a state visit there next year.

REUTERS AGL PM1021