President Hu Jintao yesterday called on China and Japan to strive to overcome the barriers plaguing their relations.

"We hope both sides will work together to remove political obstacles and bring bilateral ties back on the track of sound and stable development as soon as possible," said Hu.

He made the remarks at a meeting with Ichiro Ozawa, leader of Japan's main opposition party, in Beijing.

Leading a delegation of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Ozawa arrived in Beijing on Monday for a six-day visit to China at the invitation of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

He was accompanied by the party's deputy chief Naoto Kan and secretary general Yukio Hatoyama.

At the start of the meeting, Hu welcomed Ozawa's visit to China "at a time when China-Japan relations are facing difficulties."

"Given the situation, it is of great importance to intensify exchanges between parties and statesmen of the two countries so as to help strengthen mutual trust," said Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

He said the CPC and the Chinese Government value Sino-Japanese relations, viewing and handling them in a "strategic and long-term" perspective.

"China has been working to solve the existing problems through dialogue and equal consultation, in the spirit of treating history like a mirror and looking to the future," said Hu.

Ties between China and Japan have become increasingly strained recently, mainly due to Japanese leader Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honours convicted World War II war criminals.

The shrine is seen as a symbol of Japan's past militarism by China and other Asian nations.

There has been no fully-fledged summit since 2001 because of the shrine visits.

Responding to Hu, Ozawa said: "A good-neighbourly relationship between China and Japan is in the interests of both countries and is also conducive to peace and stability in Asia and even the world at large."

He went on to say his party values relations based on the mutual benefit of the two countries.

On Sunday, Ozawa called for the names of war criminals to be taken off the list of the dead at the Yasukuni Shrine.

Ozawa, who left Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1993 and helped create a short-lived anti-LDP coalition government, became DPJ chief in April after years in the party's backroom. His visit to China is his first journey outside Japan as party leader.

His visit came as Vice-Foreign Minister Wu Dawei yesterday urged Koizumi not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the anniversary of the end of World War II.

"Not visiting the shrine would be a fitting end (to Koizumi's term)," Wu was quoted as saying in a meeting with visiting Japanese lawmaker Hajime Funada in Beijing. Koizumi plans to step down in September.

But Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Japan will not let its leaders' visits to the shrine "be used as a bargaining chip" in deciding whether to hold summits with China.

Other issues have also affected relations, including a dispute on gas exploration on the East China Sea.

Speaking at a regular news briefing yesterday Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the sixth round of talks on the gas exploration issue will begin in Beijing on July 8. The previous five rounds were held between October 2004 and May this year.

Source: China Daily