China hopes to work with Japan to get relations back onto a normal track, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Japanese counterpart on Sunday, amid a series of disputes, some dating back to before World War Two. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history, with Beijing frequently accusing Tokyo of not properly atoning for Japan’s invasion of China before and during the war. Ties between China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, have also been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets and suspicion in China about efforts by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution. However the two countries have sought to improve ties, and Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in November on the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam. China says it is committed to enforcing UN sanctions, but that all parties need to do more to reduce tensions and restart talks.

Source: Egypt Independent January 28, 2018 09:11 UTC