Beijing: China welcomed Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the two Asian giants' first summit in five years, saying Sunday it was a ''positive'' step toward mending ties clouded by anger over official visits to a Tokyo war shrine and flaring territorial disputes.
Abe and Chinese leaders were also expected to discuss North Korea's threat to conduct a nuclear test, a move which both Beijing and Tokyo have warned would carry serious repercussions.
Abe – just elected prime minister two weeks ago – put the China visit atop his diplomatic agenda because of a deepening rift over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni war shrine.
Attempts to arrange the summit assumed added urgency after the North Korean nuclear-test announcement last Tuesday.
''This visit is the first by a Japanese prime minister in five years, which represents a positive turn in our relationship,'' President Hu Jintao said, after greeting Abe in the Great Hall of the People. ''I hope that this visit can serve as the basis for the improvement and development of bilateral ties.''
Abe told reporters in Tokyo before his departure that he wanted to hold ''heart-to-heart talks.'' He pursued that theme after arriving in China, noting to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that Beijing's rainy weather in the morning had given way to clear skies.
''I believe that our bilateral relations will also enjoy clear skies, and I will work to move our dialogue forward,'' Abe said following a formal welcome ceremony off Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
The hastily arranged visit was the first summit between China and Japan since Koizumi met Jiang Zemin in October 2001, and the first full state visit since 1999. Japan's most recent summit with South Korea was in June 2005.
The visits are aimed not at specific agreements but at simply increasing bilateral trust.
''Abe's visit cannot resolve all the problems in bilateral ties as they are complicated and protracted,'' China's Xinhua news agency quoted Xu Dunxin, a former ambassador to Japan, as saying. ''The visit itself is a positive result.''
North Korea's possible nuclear test has added a new dimension to the visit, however, giving Beijing and Tokyo a chance to find common ground but also placing China, Pyongyang's closest ally, in a difficult spot.
North Korea recently said through its state media that it would conduct a test, but didn't say when. It would be a major move – the North has long claimed to be a nuclear power, but the test could offer incontestable proof.
Japan and China back six-nation talks to get the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But the talks have been stalled for a year and North Korea has stuck to its claim that it needs nuclear arms to protect itself from a US invasion.
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