Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today that Japan and China are "inseparable" and urged Beijing to come to the table for "vital" summit talks as he sought to move on from comparisons he drew with World War I.
Abe told lawmakers he would not budge on the sovereignty of the Tokyo-administered islands that Beijing claims, but insisted the disagreement should not prevent a meeting between two closely-intertwined countries.
"Unfortunately, we have not been able to realise summit meetings with China. But my door for dialogue is always open," he told the opening of a parliamentary session.
"Instead of refusing to hold dialogue unless issues become resolved, we should hold talks because we have issues."
"Japan and China are inseparable. I will continue to make efforts to improve relations, while calling (on China) to return to the principles of a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests."
His comments came after he penned a Lunar New Year message for Chinese language magazines published in Japan, in which he wrote it was "vital that dialogues are conducted between the two countries at variety of levels, including at the summit level".
Earlier Abe's chief spokesman faced questions from journalists for the second day running about a parallel the premier had drawn at the World Economic Forum in Davos between present-day Asia and Europe on the eve of World War I.
Abe was quoted by multiple media as saying he saw a "similar situation" between current Japan-China relations and ties between Germany and Britain in 1914.
"We would like to use our diplomatic channels to explain the prime minister's true intention," Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing today.
The Japanese-language transcript of Abe's remarks did not contain the words "similar situation", although Abe made a passing reference to the ties between Germany and Britain a century ago, according to Suga.
