China wants deeper ties with Japan

China wants to deepen the strategic and mutually beneficial relations with Japan and hopes Tokyo will respect Beijing's core interests and major concerns, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

Li made the remarks during a meeting with former Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, who is in Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs.

Li reiterated China's stance on the Diaoyu Islands and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, urging Japan to adhere to the guiding principles outlined in the four bilateral political documents and properly deal with troublesome issues that exist between the two countries.

Tokyo's dispute with Beijing over China's Diaoyu Islands has adversely affected relations between the two countries.

Last month, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said his city prefecture was negotiating with the "owner" of the islands in the hope of "buying them by the end of this year".

Last week, Tokyo's bid to upgrade the status of Okinotori Atoll, a Pacific reef, into an island, and claim an outer continental shelf with an exclusive economic zone, was dismissed by a United Nations commission. Countries including China and the South Korea have been against Japan's moves.

Healthy and stable relations between China and Japan, two important powers in Asia, benefit the peoples of both countries, as well as peace and prosperity in Asia and the world, Li said.

Both sides should enhance mutual political trust and concrete cooperation in various fields, and promote people-to-people exchanges to strengthen bilateral ties, Li said.

Hatoyama said that he would continue his efforts to solve differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and deepen friendship between the two countries.

Hatoyama is among the leading political figures in Japan who value the country's ties with Asian countries, but these forces are contained by the United Sates, said Feng Zhaokui, a Japanese studies researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Washington launched its "Pivot to Asia" strategic shift and strengthened ties with allies in Asia last year, arousing widespread suspicion that the US move is aimed at containing the rise of China.

China should cooperate with "Asia-friendly" figures, who are still a considerable force on Japan's political stage, to move China-Japan relations in the right direction, Feng said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, with the two countries holding a number of activities to mark the Year of China-Japan National Exchange and Friendship.