China and Japan agreed to establish a hotline between the two countries’ defence ministries yesterday as a safeguard against “unexpected eventualities” as both countries sought to underpin a fragile rapprochement.

The announcement came after the first day of a bridge-building visit by the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, which will see him address the Japanese parliament today.

The hotline may be used to defuse the increasing number of showdowns between Japanese and Chinese vessels — some military — in the East China Sea, an area where disputed territorial boundaries have already raised the threat of naval skirmishes.

The agreement was one of a number of resolutions jointly issued by Mr Wen and Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, and represents a bid by both countries to overlook — temporarily at least — their differences in favour of a stint of “ice melting” diplomacy.

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Advances were made on environmental cooperation, the need to work together on health issues such as bird flu, and agricultural issues. At a banquet in his honour, Mr Wen was served a dish of rice and beef — both produced in Japan and both, since an accord struck yesterday, free to be exported to China.

In a much hoped-for sign that the relationship is now on a positive footing, it was agreed that Mr Abe will visit China by the end of this year, and that the leaders will meet on the fringes of international forums.

Mr Wen’s three-day visit to Japan is the first by a Chinese prime minister since 2000. The breakdown of relations between the two Asian neigh-bours was fast becoming a threat to regional stability.

Although their joint press statement represented a substantial improvement on the acrimonious standoff in place until last October, it was clear that several issues remain in what Japanese foreign ministry sources called “works in progress”.

The issue of disputed resource rights in the East China Sea was left deadlocked, and was covered only by a series of vague commitments to “higher level talks” and an agreement to continue talks.

Japan’s hope that China would strongly support its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council — a seat that China has and whose exclusivity it cherishes — was not met by Mr Wen’s stated wish that “Japan will play a bigger and more constructive role in international society”.

But as a gauge of how far both sides appear keen to make the talks constructive, the very worst areas of the relationship were all but ignored. History, the issue that has so destructively come between Tokyo and Beijing in recent years was barely mentioned.

So far on this trip, neither leader has mentioned “comfort women” wartime sex slaves or the Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals are honoured.

And there has been no mention of Mr Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, whose official visits to the Yasukuni shrine soured the bilateral relationship between Japan and its largest trading partner.

Mr Abe described yesterday’s talks — an extended one hour and 40 minute session — as a “big step forward” in rebuilding a strategic relationship between Tokyo and Beijing.

Mr Wen, who flew into Tokyo amid a violent thunderstorm, said that the visit would “lead to significant achievements” and described the bilateral relationship as “one of the most important” for both countries. Insiders at both the talks and the banquet described the mood as “warm and cordial”.

Troubled past

— Diplomatic relations established September 1972

— 462,396 Chinese live in Japan, 99,179 Japanese reside in China

— Chinese resentment of Japan’s conduct in the Second World War persists, though China renounced reparation demands in 1972

— China surpassed the US as Japan’s main trading partner in 2006

— They are the world’s second and third largest consumers of oil

— Ongoing boundary dispute over area of East China Sea believed to contain oil and gas fields

— Japan, as a US ally, has expressed public concern over China’s insistence on its sovereignty over Taiwan

Source: World Bank; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

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