China wants to resolve UN dispute with Japan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-16 12:37

China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told a Japanese official that Beijing wants talks to resolve a dispute over Tokyo's pursuit of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, Kyodo news agency said on Sunday.

China has been among the most vocal opponents of Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the council, saying Tokyo's attitude to historical issues disqualified it from taking a leading role.

"By holding transparent talks, we can find a way that Japan can accept. We want to deepen exchanges and communication with Japan," the agency quoted Li as saying on Saturday in a meeting with Japanese vice foreign minister Shotaro Yachi in Beijing.

The report came just ahead of a planned visit by Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura to China this week.

Long frosty relations between the Asian economic giants hit their lowest level in decades earlier this year, when Chinese dissatisfaction over a range of issues, many of them relating to Japan's past militarism, erupted into anti-Japan protests.

Among the most contentious issues are Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine, which honours war criminals among other war dead, and is seen by many in Asia as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Bilateral talks aimed at resolving a separate row over rights to natural gas resources in the East China Sea have made little progress.