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TOKYO - The leaders of Japan and China agreed Wednesday to start regular summits to ease decades of tension between Asia's two largest economies, pledging that neither would see the other as a threat.
Paying the first visit by the top Chinese leader to Tokyo in a decade, President Hu Jintao praised Japan's "peaceful" role in world affairs and called for the resolution of a damaging territorial row.
Relations between the countries have been mired by disputes over Japan's wartime aggression and the dispute over ownership of gas fields in the East China Sea.
But Japan counts on China as its top commercial partner, while Beijing is eager to ease regional friction as it seeks a greater global role.
In a joint statement, Hu and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed that China and Japan "both share larger responsibilities for the world's peace and development in the 21st century."
"The leaders confirmed that the two nations are cooperative partners, not threat, to each other," it said.
It called for the two countries' leaders to hold summits once a year alternating between Japan and China.
In a striking contrast to many previous meetings between the countries, the joint statement made no direct reference to Japan's invasions of China before World War II.
China refused all high-level contact with Japan for five years until 2006 in anger at then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine that venerates Japanese war dead including war criminals.
The only other Chinese president to visit Tokyo was Jiang Zemin in 1998. He sparked anger in Japan by pressing for a stronger apology over the past and criticising Japan at a public banquet with Emperor Akihito.
On Wednesday, Akihito and other members of the imperial family gave Hu a red-carpet welcome and honour guard at their sprawling palace in central Tokyo.
The two countries heralded Wednesday's statement as the fourth major text on relations between the countries, starting with the 1972 agreement to restore diplomatic relations.
The latest statement said that China "takes a positive view of the more than 60 years since the war during which Japan has developed into a peaceful state and contributed by peaceful means to the world's peace and stability."
The statement did not touch on one of the thorniest issues in relations -- the territorial dispute over lucrative gas fields in the East China Sea.
But Fukuda said the two countries believed "a solution is in sight."
"We agreed to solve the issue as soon as possible," Fukuda told reporters.
The trip to Japan is Hu's first overseas since China clamped down on major protests in Tibet in March, triggering an international uproar.
Fukuda said he pressed Hu to address international concerns by continuing talks reopened this week with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.
"I requested that China eliminate the concerns of the international community by continuing the talks and improving the situation," Fukuda said.
Fukuda, 71, is hoping that the visit will improve his government's approval ratings, which have tumbled to below 20 percent due to domestic issues.
In one move that is likely to please the public, Hu agreed to lend Japan two pandas, a male and a female, for Tokyo's Ueno Zoo to replace the beloved Ling Ling, who died last week.
China has long pursued "panda diplomacy," lending or gifting the cuddly but endangered bears as a way to improve relations.
- AFP /ls
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