China's Hu heads to Japan seeking trust and respect

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan next week will be about soothing fears, not sealing deals, as Asia's two biggest powers try to look past festering bilateral disputes and tensions over Tibet.

Hu's five-day trip from Tuesday will be his longest state visit to any one country since he became president in 2003, showing how seriously he takes wooing Japan, a key U.S. ally and the world's second-biggest economy, after years of rancor.

It will also be Hu's first outing abroad since anti-Chinese unrest erupted in Tibet in March, stoking international protests against the Beijing Olympics that drew China into rows with Western capitals and ignited Chinese counter-protests.

At this tense time, Hu wants to present his country as a benign power that does not lack Asian friends, said Shi Yinhong, a foreign policy expert at Renmin University in Beijing.

"Hu wants a lasting improvement in relations with Japan to be one of his defining foreign policy achievements," Shi said.

"Neither side wants to return to the old troubles, but getting fully beyond them requires more mutual trust."

Hu and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will focus on future cooperation, not Japan's invasion of China before and during World War Two, said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"President Hu Jintao's visit to Japan has major historic import not only because of issues in history but more importantly because it is a major visit allowing both sides to plan for the future," spokesman Liu Jianchao told Reuters this week.