Japan announced Friday that it would hold one-day talks with China next week on bilateral ties and a dispute over gas deposits in the East China Sea in an apparent attempt to staunch a rapid deterioration in relations.
Tensions between the Asian rivals have risen over the past year, particularly over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead that China considers a glorification of militarism.
The Foreign Ministry said the talks Monday in Beijing would focus on overall relations between the two countries and a simmering dispute over the ownership of natural gas deposits in the East China Sea.
Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania Bureau, will meet with Cui Tiankai, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department, to discuss overall bilateral ties, the ministry said.
Nobuyori Kodaira, head of Japan's agency for natural resources and energy, will join the gas dispute talks.
Relations between Asia's most populous nation and its largest economy have been strained in recent months by a string of disputes. Most recently, Beijing issued a strongly worded protest after Tokyo suggested that Chinese officials had something to do with a Japanese consular official's suicide last year in Shanghai.
That spat followed Foreign Minister Taro Aso's assertion that China's military posed "a considerable threat" to the region.
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