Chinese premier meets Japanese foreign minister in Beijing

In the first visit by a Japanese foreign minister to China in more than three years, Yoshimasa Hayashi met his new Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing on Sunday.

Both openly addressed the differences of opinion. Qin called for Japan to "establish a correct understanding of China."

Qin called on Japan to "demonstrate political wisdom" in working with China to improve contacts, manage differences, remove obstacles and reduce burdens on bilateral relations.

The aim was "to build a Sino-Japanese relationship that meets the requirements of the new era," he said.

"In the face of contradictions and differences, forming cliques and shouting and pressing will not help solve the problem, but will only deepen the estrangement between each other," Qin said in apparent reference to Japan's close alliance with the United States.

The last visit to China by a Japanese foreign minister had been before the pandemic in late 2019, and the last face-to-face meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers in late 2020.

Looking ahead to the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May, Qin expressed the hope that Japan would use its presidency of the group of seven major powers to guide the "tone and direction of the meeting."

The communist leadership fears that the G7 meeting could be directed against China. The US and its allies are accused of trying to slow down the rise of the world's second largest economy.

There are serious differences over China's territorial claims in the East China Sea, Japan's close cooperation with the United States and the expansion of Japan's military.

The two countries are also at odds over new restrictions on Japan's export of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and the discharge of polluted cooling water from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima into the Pacific.

Fukushima was a question of people's health and safety, Qin said. Japan should handle it responsibly, he said. According to the operator and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, there should be no danger because the contaminated water is largely filtered.

During the talks, Japan's Hiyashi also protested the arrest of an employee of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas on espionage charges in China and demanded his immediate release. His counterpart only replied that China would deal with the case according to the law.

Discussing Russia's war in Ukraine, Hiyashi called for China to play a "responsible role" in working towards peace, Kyodo news agency reported. Since the invasion more than a year ago, China has backed Russian President Vladimir Putin, portraying the US and NATO as the main culprits.

The foreign minister's visit was agreed by China's leader Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok in November.

The two sides also set up a hot line on Friday between their forces, which had been planned for years, to avoid possible misunderstandings in case of incidents, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

Despite all the differences, Japan's foreign minister was received by high-ranking officials in China, among others by the new Premier Li Qiang.

From China, Japan's foreign minister plans to travel on to Brussels for NATO consultations, which will also be attended by his counterparts from other defence alliance partner countries such as South Korea, Australia and Ukraine.

In December, Kishida classified the rising power China as his country's greatest strategic challenge.