Mitarai briefs Abe on China's hopes for bilateral cooperation

TOKYO, Sept. 7 Kyodo

Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, or Nippon Keidanren, on Thursday told Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe that China earnestly hopes to cooperate with Japan in the fields of environmental protection and energy conservation, and that the Japanese business community also hopes for such cooperation, government officials said.

In briefing Abe about his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao this Tuesday, Mitarai also conveyed a message from China that it is trying to enhance the transparency of its legal system, protect intellectual property rights, and abide by the tariff and other business rules of the World Trade Organization, they said.

Mitarai visited Beijing as part of a business leaders' delegation from Sunday through Wednesday.

Abe, who is widely expected to win the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election later this month and to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, said during the meeting with Mitarai that the two countries should recognize that closer ties would benefit both, the officials said.

At a press conference following the meeting with the leader of the nation's most influential business lobby, Abe said Mitarai told nothing about whether the Chinese premier had mentioned anything specific about possible summit talks between the two countries.

China has refused to hold summit talks with Japan due to Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Class-A Japanese war criminals along with the war dead.

During Mitarai's trip to China, Wen said that talks between the two countries' leaders can resume as soon as ''the political obstacle'' is removed, an apparent reference to premiers' visits to Yasukuni.

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