Senior government officials from Japan and China met at a two-day symposium that kicked off Sunday in Tokyo, in yet another sign of an apparent thaw in rel
Senior government officials from Japan and China met at a two-day symposium that kicked off Sunday in Tokyo, in yet another sign of an apparent thaw in relations between the two Asian powerhouses.
During the 14th Annual Tokyo-Beijing Forum at a hotel in the capital, Wei Jianguo, vice chairman at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, revealed that about 1,000 people will attend a signing ceremony for more than 60 joint projects involving Japanese and Chinese firms when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Beijing later this month.
Those projects are all designed to jointly develop “third-country” markets in countries outside of China and Japan.
The joint projects include the construction of a petroleum refinement plant in Kazakhstan and a solar power generation facility in the United Arab Emirates, which will be one of the world’s largest, Wei said through a Japanese translator.
During the symposium, Chinese officials repeatedly urged Japan to jointly promote third-country development projects in what was seen by some as a push by Beijing for Tokyo to join its ambitious “Belt and Road” initiative, which is centered on massive infrastructure projects in central Asia, Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.
“Right now, the China-Japan relationship has a forward-looking momentum,” Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua said in his speech at the symposium. “High-level contacts have been maintained and exchanges in various areas have been strengthened,” he added.
Japan and China still have “differences in opinions” over certain issues, but the two countries now need to control frictions by “building up mutual trust” through the understanding of each other with rational minds, the ambassador emphasized.
