New China envoy urges stronger economic ties with Japan

Japan’s new envoy to China urged stronger economic ties with Beijing in an interview broadcast Monday, after the incoming premier pledged to mend bilateral ties strained by a bitter territorial row.

The dispute over the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands – which Beijing calls the Diaoyus – has soured relations between Asia’s two biggest economies, with neither side willing to budge after months of wrangling.

“My mission number one is to improve the Japan-China relationship,” Masato Kitera, a career diplomat who will succeed Uichiro Niwa as Japan’s ambassador to China, told public broadcaster NHK.

“I will explain to China’s senior officials we need to make economic ties warmer if our political relationship is cooling, as Japanese corporate activities in China are contributing to the Chinese economy,” he said.

The dispute flared badly in September after Tokyo nationalised the islands, triggering protests across China that led to boycotts or attacks on Japanese businesses, with Japan’s exports to China tumbling 14.5 per cent on-year.

Beijing has also boycotted various events held in the both countries, including its decision not to send its finance minister and central bank chief to Tokyo for IMF and World Bank meetings held in October.

Beijing sent government boats into the archipelago’s territorial waters almost every day, and upped the ante on December 13 with a flypast, in what Japan said was the first Chinese breach of its airspace since at least 1958.