Let's move on from past, says Shinzo Abe as China and Japan agree on system to avoid East China Sea clashes
Set aside ‘unfortunate history’, Japanese PM tells China’s top diplomat as they pave way to summit
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for high-level dialogue with his Chinese counterparts as he told a top diplomat from Beijing that China should move on from “unfortunate past history”.
As State Councillor Yang Jiechi yesterday concluded a two-day visit to Japan, the two neighbours agreed to launch a crisis management mechanism to prevent unintended clashes in the East China Sea as soon as possible.
Yang’s trip followed recent hiccups in historical and maritime territorial disputes that had frayed the slowly improving relationship between the countries.
The visit is also seen as paving the way for a three-way summit between leaders from the two countries and South Korea later this month or early next month.
In the meeting yesterday, Abe expressed regret over China’s successful bid to register the Nanking massacre documents with Unesco.
“I believe we should not excessively focus on our unfortunate past history, but that we should build future-oriented Japan-China relations,” Abe told Yang, China’s top foreign policy official who outranks the foreign minister, according to a senior Japanese official.