Clouds hang over disputed seas, islands between Japan and China, as Abe flags 'gradual improvement',

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told the G20 summit of global leaders that he sees an overall improvement in relations with China, a spokesman said on Sunday, although sticking points remain around the East China and South China Seas.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, and Japan, the third-largest, have a difficult political history, with relations stained by the legacy of Japan’s second world war aggression and conflicting claims over a group of East China Sea islets known as the Senkakus in Japan, which controls them, and Diaoyus in China.

“The prime minister said that Japan-China relations as a whole see gradual improvement,” Yasuhisa Kawamura told reporters on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Turkey, which Abe is attending.

However, Kawamura added that issues around the East China Sea and South China Sea remained a “concern” for the region.

Abe has in the past been critical of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, through which much of Japan and South Korea’s trade and energy supplies pass.

Abe told South Korea’s president this month that he wanted cooperation between the two countries and the United States in maintaining an open and peaceful South China Sea.