Abe to visit Beijing, meet Hu, Wen on Oct. 8: Report
(KYODO)
Updated: 2006-10-02 08:26
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to visit Beijing on Oct. 8 and meet
with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao the same day, sources
familiar with the situation said Sunday.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, chats with Foreign
Minister Taro Aso prior to the opening of a Parliament session in Tokyo
Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006. Abe, the new outspoken nationalist prime
minister, is soaring in public opinion polls with support ratings for his
Cabinet as high as 71 percent, according to surveys released Thursday by
four major newspapers. [AP]
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Abe, who
took office Tuesday as prime minister succeeding Junichiro Koizumi, is expected
to visit South Korea Oct. 9 to meet with President Roh Moo Hyun.
He pledged during his leadership campaign that he wants his first overseas
visit to be a summit with "an Asian leader."
On Friday, Abe pledged in his first policy address as prime minister to
parliament to mend soured ties with China and South Korea, and referred to his
agreement with Roh over the phone Thursday to meet at an early date.
Japan has had no summit talks for 17 months with China and 10 months with
South Korea as the countries protest at former Prime Minister Koizumi's repeated
visits to Tokyo's war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese Class-A war
criminals are honored along with the war dead.
After Koizumi visited Yasukuni last October, the Chinese leaders have refused
to hold any summits with Koizumi.
Koizumi, who last met with Hu in April last year in Jakarta, made his sixth
annual visit to the Shinto shrine on Oct. 17, and paid his last homage there
while in office on the Aug. 15 anniversary of the end of World War
II.
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