China-Japan relationship is being repaired

Parties send promising signals of stronger high-level interactions

China's top political adviser Yu Zhengsheng told visiting Japanese lawmakers on Monday that the China-Japan relationship "is undergoing repairs and improvement", sending a promising signal for stronger high-level interactions between the ruling parties of both sides.

Yu made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation of Japan's ruling coalition - the Liberal Democratic Party and the junior partner New Komeito party.

One of the goals of the trip is to resume a Japan-China liaison mechanism between ruling parties, Japan's Kyodo News agency said last week. The mechanism reportedly stalled in 2009 after the two parties lost the lower house election. The coalition regained power in 2013.

The Communist Party of China is ready to "further enforce high-level interactions and institutionalized exchanges" with Japan's ruling coalition parties, Yu said.

Sadakazu Tanigaki, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party and Yoshihisa Inoue, secretary-general of the coalition's junior partner New Komeito party, led a three-day trip to Beijing starting on Monday.

The visit "is of great significance" as the relationship improves, Yu said, hailing the important role of the interaction among the ruling parties in improving and developing ties.

Historical and territorial issues sunk the relationship to a record low in 2012.

After the LDP regained control over the parliament in 2013, the two governments took their first step to ease the fray last November by reaching a four-point principled agreement that aims to repair the ties.

President Xi Jinping met briefly with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Beijing in November.

Tanigaki and Inoue told Yu that the meeting between the top leaders last year "laid a foundation" for the improvement of the ties.

Japan expects to "resume and develop the institutionalized interactions between the ruling parties of both countries and boost the development of Japan-China ties", they said.

Tokyo is urged to "work along with China, fully honor the four-point principled agreement reached by the two governments, and cement a political basis for the China-Japan relationship," Yu said.

Liang Yunxiang, a professor of Japan studies at Peking University, said that as the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II nears, Japan is not expected to undermine the political mutual trust because of its perception over wartime history.

China and Japan are expected to expand their shared interest to contain the strains in their relationship, and "both of them should bear in mind that their relationship matters to the interests of the whole region", Liang said.