Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya visited Beijing on Wednesday and held talks for several hours with his counterpart Wang Yi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Both sides were generally cautiously welcoming of recent improvements in bilateral relations between regional rivals with complex relations.
“It is important for both Japan and China to fulfill responsibilities and move forward together for the peace and prosperity of the region and the international community,” Iwaya said at the beginning of his meeting with Wang.
Meanwhile, China’s Prime Minister Li Qiang said bilateral relations were “in an important period of improvement and development”, echoing President Xi Jinping’s comments during talks with Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba last month.
Iwaya is the first Japanese minister to visit China after holding bilateral talks in Peru on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting since April last year.
Iwaya expresses ‘grave concern’ over military activity, detention of Japanese citizens
However, Iwaya also sounded a note of caution before his departure, saying “there are various possibilities but also many challenges and concerns” in what he said was one of the most important bilateral relations for Tokyo.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Iwaya expressed serious concern about the situation in the East China Sea, including the Senkaku Islands. [and] “China’s increasing military activity.”
The Senkaku Islands are five uninhabited pieces of land in the East China Sea known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, located northeast of Taiwan, east of mainland China, and west of Japan’s Okinawa Island.
Japan protested strongly in August when a Chinese military aircraft flew into the country’s airspace for the first time; It also erupted over a rare Chinese test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean in late September. In October he sent a warship to the Taiwan Strait for the first time.
More broadly, Japan has also changed the largely pacifist defense policy doctrine established after its defeat in World War II, boosting military spending and moving away from the principle of self-defense.
The government in Tokyo said Iwaya had called for the “prompt release” of jailed Japanese citizens, saying “the opaqueness of anti-espionage laws is forcing Japanese people to think twice about going to China.” ”
But the two ministers also agreed that Wang would also visit Japan “at the earliest possible time next year” and that the two governments would hold a bilateral security dialogue in 2025.
Possibility of discussion on seafood trade restrictions
The two sides were also expected to discuss Chinese trade restrictions on Japanese seafood imposed by Beijing amid the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea last year.
China, a major export market for Japan, imposed a blanket ban last August.
Japan argues that wastewater from the affected Fukushima plant is adequately monitored, treated and diluted to safer levels than international standards. However, China has described the water as contaminated and has called for international sampling and monitoring.
Although progress was not expected on Wednesday, the two countries agreed in principle in September to work towards normalizing seafood trade again.
The bilateral talks come just weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump for his second term as US President.
msh/rm (AFP, AP, Reuters)
