Ruling Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Hidenao Nakagawa said Saturday
that Japan and China should hold a bilateral summit before Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi's term runs out in September.
"We should overcome the various issues and mutually take the risk to hold a
summit meeting," Nakagawa said of the strained Sino-Japan relationship during a
presentation in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.
He said it is also important for Koizumi's successor as LDP president and
Japan's prime minister to make "uninterrupted efforts" to work on improving the
two countries' ties, which have been strained largely over Koizumi's visits to
the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
Noting that Japan and China have recently been holding a number of
minister-level talks, the chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council
suggested that Beijing has begun to place importance on its relations with
Tokyo.
"China understands that it needs to expand cooperation (with Japan) in areas
other than the Yasukuni issue and we see the start of change toward placing
importance on Japan," Nakagawa said.
China has refused to hold summit talks with Japan in protest of Koizumi's
visits to Yasukuni, which enshrines Class-A war criminals along with the war
dead. China and some other Asian countries see the Shinto shrine as symbolic of
past Japanese militarism.
On the domestic economy, Nakagawa predicted that mid- to long-term economic
policy will become a point of contention in September's LDP presidential
election and urged those who will vie to fill Koizumi's post to come up with
specific numerical targets.
The candidates "should make clear whether they aim for high economic growth
or whether they say that is impossible," he said.