Japan's Fukuda on charm offensive in China

BEIJING - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda played a friendly game of catch on his visit to China on Saturday, a symbol of warming ties between the North Asian rivals despite an intractable row over gas resources in disputed waters.

In a show of amity that would have been unthinkable two years ago, when anti-Japanese protests erupted on Chinese streets, Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao -- both decked out in baseball uniforms -- tossed a ball in a state guesthouse gym.

Fukuda, who took power earlier this year, has said he would not visit Japan's Yasukuni war shrine, which is seen by critics as a symbol of the country's militarist past, cooling tension over Japan's wartime invasion of China.

"The Chinese side has really welcomed that, this kind of attitude toward the history question. Because after Fukuda took power, he very clearly said he would pay attention to Asian relations, and in particular relations with China," said Huang Dahui, a Japan expert at the People's University of China.

"So I think this has given China's leaders certain hopes and expectations," he said.

Talks between Fukuda and Wen on Friday yielded no major breakthroughs on another key issue dogging relations, a row over how to develop natural gas resources in a disputed part of the East China Sea.

But both men said talks had made "certain progress" and a Japanese diplomat said there was consensus to have the issue resolved before Chinese President Hu Jintao goes to Japan next spring.

"We hope we can find a settlement acceptable to the two countries at an early date," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference late on Friday. He would not be drawn on when that date might be.

After his morning athletics on Saturday, Fukuda visited a Beijing elementary school where he was greeted by students waving Olympic mascots. He showed off his skills at calligraphy and folded traditional origami paper as students escorted him around the school and sang for him.

Fukuda is to visit the northern port city of Tianjin later on Saturday en route to Qufu, birthplace of the ancient sage Confucius.

Despite the new-found warmth in their relationship, some commentators warned that ties between the Asian powers were not yet in the clear.

"If not properly resolved, it will be hard for China-Japan relations to avoid some twists and turns," the Beijing News quoted Zhou Yongsheng of the China Foreign Affairs University, as saying, referring to the gas dispute.