WORLD_ Senior Chinese figure urges Japan to hush over South China Sea

NIKKEI
ASIAN REVIEW

Politics & Economy International Relations
December 4, 2015 7:03 pm JST


Senior Chinese figure urges Japan to hush over South China Sea

BEIJING (Kyodo) -- One of China's seven most politically powerful men on Friday urged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to be prudent in what he says about territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Yu Zhengsheng, ranked fourth in the Communist Party leadership, struck a note of warning when he met with senior lawmakers from Japan's ruling coalition parties in Beijing, amid a gradual-but-sure improvement in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"It is safe to say that the relations took a big turn for the better this year...but there needs to be more time for a fundamental improvement," a Japanese lawmaker who attended the meeting at the Great Hall of the People quoted Yu as saying.

While touching on China's rapid construction activities on reclaimed islands in the disputed sea, Yu said that these have been carried out in the country's own territory and are "normal," and requested Japan not to "overreact" to them, according to the politician.

The meeting, which lasted about 40 minutes, was held a day after the ruling parties of Japan and China resumed their consultative meeting for the first time in more than six years.

Yu, a member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, hailed the resumption of exchanges between the Communist Party and the Japanese ruling coalition, formed by the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner the Komeito party.

"I believe it has great significance in boosting political mutual trust, friendship and cooperation between China and Japan," Yu said in his opening remarks, which were open to the media.

But later Yu, who serves as China's top political adviser, conveyed concern over Japan's position on the territorial disputes to the 10-member delegation, co-headed by the respective secretaries general of the LDP and the Komeito party, Sadakazu Tanigaki and Yoshihisa Inoue.

Without directly naming Abe, Yu said it is important for Chinese and Japanese leaders to be "discreet with words and deeds, and maintain the principle of (both countries) not becoming a threat to each other," according to the lawmaker, Kiyohiko Toyama of Komeito.

With regard to high tensions in the South China Sea, Yu went on to say that it is hard to understand claims that the construction activities have posed a threat to the freedom of navigation in the region, according to Toyama.

He quoted Yu as saying that China has "never hindered Japan's freedom of navigation" in the area.

China has insisted its territorial disputes in the sea with five other claimants -- Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam -- should be resolved bilaterally, not multilaterally, without the interference of countries such as Japan and the United States.

China claims most of the sea, a key shipping route thought to hold significant oil and gas deposits.

Along with other leaders in the region, Abe has been critical of China's creation of man-made islands and its growing assertiveness in the region.

During a regional summit last month in Kuala Lumpur, Abe once again suggested that the Chinese activities are problematic and it is necessary for the international community to never allow any unilateral attempt to change the status quo.

Nonetheless, since Abe's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping about a year ago, bilateral relations, which were chilled for several years over territorial issues and views on wartime history, have been on a track of reconciliation.

In the most recent conversation between Abe and Xi, which took place earlier this week on the sidelines of a U.N. climate summit in Paris, they again agreed to push ahead on improving relations.

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