BEIJING, Dec. 25 -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya in Beijing on Wednesday.

Noting that China-Japan relations are at a crucial stage of improvement and development, Li said China is willing to work with Japan to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, promote the sustained and healthy development of bilateral relations, and achieve more new results in pragmatic cooperation.

China and Japan are close neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other, and the two countries have made a solemn commitment to being cooperative partners rather than threats to each other, he said.

"It is hoped that Japan will work with China, abide by the principles laid down in the four China-Japan political documents, face history squarely and look to the future, constructively manage differences and disputes, and take care of the big picture of China-Japan relations," Li said.

He called on the two sides to expand economic and trade relations, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and further strengthen people-to-people exchanges.

Iwaya said that Japan is willing to make joint efforts with China to strengthen exchanges at all levels, especially people-to-people exchanges, promote mutually beneficial cooperation and improve public opinion toward each other, comprehensively advance strategic relations of mutual benefit, and build constructive and stable Japan-China relations.