Japan seeks hotline with China, plays down shrine visit

[beijingwalker]

Japan seeks hotline with China, plays down shrine visit
Thursday, 09 January 2014 20:52

ALTHOUGH still at odds with China on territorial and other issues, Japan took its case to Europe yesterday, defending Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to a war shrine and reiterating its call for an emergency hotline between Tokyo and Beijing.

Ties between the two Asian economic giants, never warm, were further strained last month when Abe visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals are enshrined with other war dead, angering China and South Korea.

Beijing and Tokyo are also arguing over ownership of a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea. China has said it is willing to talk to Japan about the issue but has accused Abe of not being serious about wanting to resolve the dispute.

But speaking at a news conference with their French counterparts, Japan’s Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo’s sole objective was building a durable peace in the Asian-Pacific region.

“We need a hotline for dialogue,” Onodera said, speaking through an interpreter. “We spoke to China about this, but sadly this dialogue is not open, but we must re-open it.”


Japan and China agreed in 2011 to hold discussions on setting up a Defense hotline for maritime and air emergencies.

But their talks stalled after the Japanese government bought the disputed islands from a private landowner in 2012 to fend off a potentially more inflammatory purchase by the Tokyo city government, then headed by a nationalist governor.

China took its propaganda war with Japan to the United Nations on Wednesday, questioning Abe’s motives for visiting the Yasukuni Shrine and calling on him to correct his “erroneous outlook” on history.

Both China and Korea suffered under brutal Japanese rule, with parts of China occupied in the 1930s and Korea colonized from 1910 to 1945.

 

[beijingwalker]

I think China will just ignore Japan's request.

 

[eazzy]

^ Best thing to do.