Leaders of Japan and China to hold first summit

Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping are to hold their first summit next week, a report said Friday, after presiding over two years of animosity between Asia`s two biggest economies.

The countries have "agreed to arrange a summit next week" in Beijing on the sidelines of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Japan`s national broadcaster NHK said.

Tokyo has long been pressing for such a meeting but Beijing has resisted, with the two sides
locked in a territorial dispute and still at odds over World War II history.

As a condition for the meet, China, which has.painted Abe as a dangerous revisionist, had reportedly been demanding that he swear not to repeat a visit to a Tokyo shrine that honours fallen soldiers, including a number of war
criminals.

It has also been calling for Japan to acknowledge the dispute over the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands, which it calls the Diaoyus, where
paramilitary vessels from both sides have sparred over recent years.

Japan has until now rebuffed the calls, but a statement issued by the Chinese foreign ministry Friday suggested there had been some
accommodation on the thorny island issue, although it appeared to fall short of an explicit acknowledgement.

"The two sides have acknowledged that different positions exist between them regarding the
tensions which have emerged in recent years over the Diaoyu Islands and some waters in the East China Sea," it said.

They "agreed to prevent the situation from aggravating through dialogue and consultation and establish crisis management mechanisms to avoid contingencies."

In what appeared to be a reference to Abe`s visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, the statement said: "In the spirit of `facing history
squarely and looking forward to the future`, the two sides have reached some agreement on overcoming political obstacles in the bilateral relations."

AFP