China and Japan should safeguard free trade and anchor global growth, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday, as Japan’s prime minister arrived in Beijing on a visit against a backdrop of trade friction with the United States. Shinzo Abe’s three-day visit is expected to carve out
China and Japan should safeguard free trade and anchor global growth, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday, as Japan’s prime minister arrived in Beijing on a visit against a backdrop of trade friction with the United States.
Shinzo Abe’s three-day visit is expected to carve out new scope for cooperation between Asia’s two biggest economies. It is also expected to promote trust, which has been fragile at times since they restored diplomatic relations in 1972.
“We hope both sides would work hard to promote regional peace, safeguard multilateralism and free trade, and become the axis of stability, growth and momentum for not just Asia but the world,” Li said in a speech at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Abe who arrived hours earlier on his first formal bilateral summit with Chinese leaders in seven years, said their two countries were playing “an indispensable role in the economic development of not just Asia but the world”.
In the past year, China has stepped up its outreach to Japan and others as it locked horns over trade with the United States.
Japan has trade problems of its own with the United States.
While worried about China’s growing naval power, Japan is also keen for closer economic ties with its biggest trading partner, but it must manage that rapprochement without upsetting its key security ally, the United States.
