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TOKYO - China's foreign minister offered Thursday to help Japan address concerns over North Korea, a Japanese official said, after Tokyo's refusal to fund a breakthrough deal on Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing hailed the growing goodwill between Beijing and Tokyo as he started the first visit to Japan by a senior Chinese official since the Asian powers began repairing frayed ties last year.
His trip came two days after North Korea agreed to shut down key nuclear facilities in exchange for oil shipments under a deal hashed out in marathon six-nation talks hosted by Beijing, Pyongyang's main ally.
But Japan has ruled out funding the agreement due to an emotive dispute with North Korea over the reclusive regime's kidnappings of Japanese civilians.
"We understand that Japan has concerns regarding North Korea. China will cooperate," Li told lower house Speaker Yohei Kono, according to a Japanese official at the meeting.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies. It returned five victims and their families and said the rest were dead.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who built his career campaigning on the issue, believes more abductees are alive and demands North Korea come clean.
Japan's insistence on bringing up the abduction dispute in the six-way talks angered North Korea and irritated China and South Korea, which both said that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons were the most pressing concern.
The United States has supported Japan on the issue, but has taken a more conciliatory line on North Korea in recent months.
Li, who will meet with Abe on Friday, was also quoted as asking for Japan's understanding over China's satellite-killer test last month.
China became the third country after the US and the former Soviet Union to shoot down an orbiting satellite, triggering concern in the United States, Japan and other countries.
"China will maintain its policy of the peaceful use of space," Li told Kono, according to the official at their talks.
Li's three-day visit is meant to lay the groundwork for a visit in April by Premier Wen Jiabao, who will be the first top Chinese leader to come to Tokyo since 2000.
Li was quoted as saying that Wen would bring ideas to Tokyo on how to resolve one of the most bitter disputes between the two nations -- how to mark the maritime border in the gas-rich East China Sea.
Japan's ties with China and South Korea were badly strained during the 2001-2006 tenure of then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, primarily over his repeated visits to a controversial shrine to war dead.
Abe travelled to Beijing and Seoul days after taking office in late September, setting off a drive to improve relations with Tokyo's neighbours, which remain resentful over Japan's militarist past.
Abe, despite a career as a hardliner on emotive history issues, has refrained from saying if he will visit the Yasukuni shrine. He is not known to have gone to the Shinto shrine since taking office.
"Japan-China relations had a turning point in autumn last year and we would like to see a higher level of cooperation," Li was quoted as telling Kono.
"To express this will, Wen Jiabao plans to come to Tokyo very soon."
Despite tense political ties, China is Japan's largest trading partner and Japanese business leaders have supported bids to improve relations. - AFP/ir
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