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Japan PM says open to summit with China to help economic ties

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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe walks to an ordinary session at the lower house of parliament in Tokyo January 28, 2013. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe walks to an ordinary session at the lower house of parliament in Tokyo January 28, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai

TOKYO | Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:22am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday he was open to a meeting with Chinese leaders to rebuild ties damaged by a territorial dispute but said there was no room for negotiations on their row over a group of small islands.

The remarks came after China's Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, told a Japanese envoy sent to Beijing last week that he was committed to developing bilateral ties and would consider holding a summit meeting.

Relations between the world's second- and third-largest economies plunged after the Japanese government bought three disputed islands from a private owner last September, sparking anti-Japan protests across China. Some Japanese businesses were looted and Japanese citizens attacked.

"It is precisely because we have a problem that we should hold the summit between leaders and have high-level talks," Abe said on a television program. "I would like to consider a top-level summit if circumstances allow."

The conservative prime minister has just increased the defense budget for the first time in 11 years and swept back to power in a December election calling for the protection of Japan's "beautiful seas".

He reiterated Japan's stance on the islands, which it controls. Japan calls them the Senkaku while China calls them the Diaoyu.

"The Senkaku Islands are our land and China has taken provocative steps against them ... we have been clear that there is no room for negotiation on this matter," he said.

"But on top of that, there's an economic relationship. Japan invests in China and reaps benefits from exporting its goods there while China creates job places thanks to Japanese investment," said Abe, adding that maintaining strong economic ties were vital for both countries.

"If top-level meeting was necessary to achieve that, we should do it and from that point on rebuild our relationship."

(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Comments (1)
Janeallen wrote:
Abe is wolf-in-sheep-skin.
His speech to the Japanese people is one way.
His letter and envoy to China is the opposite way.
His manipulative diplomacy towards the United States to trick us to give him high tech weapons is a third way.

All 3 are contradictory.

Obama and Clinton are fools to send them high tech weapons, just like we were before Japan used us to commit crimes against humanity in Korea, and crimes against humanity in China, for which Abe is whitewashing history.

Hundreds of millions of souls scream out at Abe’s Government, his continual deliberate psychological warfare against descendents of his Chinese and Koreans victims.

Clinton and Obama are traitors to America for rewarding Japan’s manipulation of its currency of 14% in 4 months. That, and Toyota’s stranglehold of all the prime time ads on American TV, including the PBS News Hour, is subversion of American auto industry.

The News Hour did more to whitewash all those who died from Toyota deliberate coverup of its auto problems.

Even this past week, NONE of the American media reported on how the currency manipulation of Japan caused Toyota to overtake American and German automakers.

Abe is wolf-in-sheep-skin.

Clinton and Obama sold out American interest based on ill conceived advice, and its lack of diligence in understanding the TRUE Asian history. Instead, most of Clinton and Obama’s advisors rely on grossly distorted history fanned by Japan, and its active suppression, harassment, hacking of computers of American voices of conscience.

I now understand why the Chinese American who tried to chronicle the Asian WWII history died so young. Their techniques are highly sophisticated.

Jan 29, 2013 10:40pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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