Shinzo Abe, the new Japanese Prime Minister has been called into duty straight away as China has called upon him on December 26, 2012, to help ease difficult relations between the two countries by meeting them halfway. The two Asian giants have been locked in a territorial battle involving islands in the East China Sea.
Hua Chunying, who is the foreign ministry spokeswoman for China said that the country was hoping the new Japanese administration would make concrete efforts to overcome difficulties between the two countries by making an equal effort. These efforts were needed to get bilateral relations back on track for both countries to continue developing.
Hua went on to say that China was willing to work with Japan to continue to develop bilateral relations so that both countries would be at peace in regards to the issue of the disputed islands. A Chinese plane flew close to Japanese territory in 2012, which caused Japan to scramble fighter jets to tackle the issue.
Beijing is currently hoping that the issue of the disputed islands can be solved through negotiation and dialogue, even as they called the Diaoyu islands ‘China’s inherent territory’.
The press in China were of the opinion that Japan could not afford to strain relations with its neighbours like South Korea, Russia and others as it had to work hard to overcome a stagnant domestic market and will need to expand trade overseas as well.
