BEIJING, Dec 28: Japan and China, keen to improve ties plagued by wartime history, sought to resolve disputes over energy resources, territory and military build-ups at top-level talks on Friday.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reviewed an honour guard before sitting down for talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

“I hope that through joint efforts we can continue to improve and push forward relations between China and Japan to achieve new development,” Wen told Fukuda at the beginning of their meeting.

Fukuda said: “Japan and China are faced with a great chance and responsibility. We want to cooperate with you in creating the future of Asia and the world in the broad global perspective.”

In a light moment, Fukuda said he had suggested to Wen that they meet for a game of catch but said he had yet to hear from his host. Wen, who pitched in a baseball game during a visit to Japan in April, replied that he was ready to play anytime, drawing laughter.

Fukuda is to hold separate talks with parliament chief Wu Bangguo and President Hu Jintao in the afternoon. Talks will focus on economic, environmental and energy cooperation, featuring transfers of Japan’s waste-cutting, energy-saving and pollution-free technology.

Ties between the two Asian giants have warmed in the past year after a long chill under former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who repeatedly visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni war shrine seen by critics as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.

The 71-year-old Fukuda, whose father clinched a milestone peace treaty with Beijing in 1978, has vowed not to visit Yasukuni while in office.

Fukuda’s conciliatory stance has helped ease tensions in Sino-Japanese relations frayed by a string of issues, including a simmering dispute over natural gas, stemming from differences over a border separating the two countries’ exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea.

China is piping gas from an area close to what Japan sees as its own economic zone, leading to concerns in Tokyo that Beijing could be siphoning resources from geological structures that stretch into the Japanese zone.

Japanese diplomats said Tokyo and Beijing have made “last-ditch” efforts to reach a compromise in the gas field dispute, but it remained unclear whether Wen and Fukuda could come closer for a deal.

“Negotiations are still under way at various levels. But no agreement has been reached,” a Japanese diplomat said.

The two countries agreed in April to resolve the gas row by autumn of this year, but 11 rounds of talks have failed to produce results.

Japan remains the biggest economic power of Asia, with a $4.34 trillion economy in 2006, against China’s $2.67 trillion, according to World Bank data. Tokyo has long sought to boost its diplomatic clout commensurate with its economic might.

Japan’s trade with China, including Hong Kong, surpassed that with the United States for three consecutive years from 2004. It stood at $249.3 billion in 2006, against $213.7 billion for two-way trade between Japan and the United States.

The two East Asian powers are suspicious of each other’s military ambitions.

Japan, worried about China’s military build-up, has urged Beijing to be more transparent about its soaring defence outlays.—Reuters