Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks with reporters in San Francisco after his Nov. 16 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Yuki Shibata)

SAN FRANCISCO--The leaders of Japan and China drew on the past to move fraught bilateral relations forward during talks here aimed at leveraging the two countries’ common interests.

Meeting Nov. 16, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on the importance of pursuing a “strategic relationship of mutual benefit.”

That strategy, first mooted in October 2006 during a meeting between the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao, was later incorporated into the Japan-China joint statement of 2008.

In a nutshell, it recognizes the vast difference in the political structure of the two nations, but seeks to find benefits for the two sides, mainly in the economic sphere.

Abe also worked to improve economic ties during his second stint as prime minister in the face of a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and Abe’s own visit to Tokyo’s war-related Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are memorialized.

Xi raised the strategy during his talks with Kishida, noting that economic benefits were already deeply integrated between the two nations.

Afterward, Kishida told reporters that reconfirming the importance of the strategic relationship seeking mutual benefits “was significant for future development” of the bilateral relationship.

A priority issue for Japan is China’s blanket ban on seafood imports over the release since August of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Kishida called for the edict to be lifted immediately, but Xi cited lingering concerns in other countries about possible health effects from Japan’s move.

As a stopgap measure, Kishida told reporters that experts from the two nations would meet to discuss the matter from a scientific perspective.

An official in the prime minister’s office praised the shift toward constructive discussions to deal with the issue, but a high-ranking source in the Foreign Ministry said no hint had emerged of what resolution was possible.

Seeing as the Chinese government led the virulent criticism about the release of the treated water, it cannot be expected to quickly backtrack. Moreover, getting the Chinese population to come on board will be no easy matter as their concerns were generated in large part by the government.

The agreement to hold discussions among experts of both nations may have been about the only possible concession Beijing was able to make at the current time, indicating it will not be easy to convince the vast Chinese population that the seafood import ban can be lifted.

(This article was written by Tokuhiko Saito, Keishi Nishimura and Shino Matsuyama.)

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