Japan, China strike deals as ties step up

Japan and China signed $2.6 billion in business deals and touted their warmer ties yesterday during a rare visit to Beijing by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as both face trade challenges from US President Donald Trump. Abe met Chinese President Xi Jinping after a full day of activities that included talks with Premier Li Keqiang and an honour guard with Japan’s flag raised outside the Great Hall of the People across from Tiananmen Square.

Relations between Asia’s two biggest economies have improved in recent years after they sunk to new lows in 2012 when Tokyo “nationalised” disputed islands claimed by Beijing. The last official visit to Beijing by a Japanese prime minister was in 2011. Abe travelled with nearly 1,000 delegates from Japanese companies who struck 500 deals worth a total of $2.6 billion, Li said, without providing details.

The two leaders also oversaw the signing of several political agreements, including a currency swap deal and a mechanism to avoid accidental clashes between their militaries which often come in contact in the disputed East China Sea. Abe’s three-day trip, which began Thursday, sets up the possibility that Xi will visit Japan next year.