Japanese loans to China, or the Sino-Japanese capital cooperation, should be a positive element of bilateral relations and it would do harm to both sides to make it a "very sensitive" issue as some Japanese had attempted to do in recent years. This was explained by Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at Tuesday's regular press briefing in Beijing.

Liu said the Chinese welcomed the fact that the Japanese side had declared it would attach importance to the Sino-Japanese relations but commented, "Only attaching importance is not enough and we hope they'll take sincere actions for the improvement and development of bilateral relations," he stressed.

The Japanese government made a formal decision on Tuesday to end its freeze on the annual disbursement of loans to China for the fiscal year 2005 through March, Kyodo News reported.

The ruling was made by a top decision-making panel on foreign aid strategy comprising Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Foreign Minister Taro Aso and other Cabinet ministers, reports said.

Koizumi told reporters that the decision had been made after an overall assessment of the situation. He added that he "always attached importance" to Sino-Japanese ties, Reuters reported.

Last month Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso on the sidelines of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue conference during which Li urged the Japanese government to remove political obstacles to improving and developing bilateral ties.

When answering a question on a Spanish Court hearing a case on the Tibet issue Liu said that China resolutely opposed any country interfering in China's internal affairs using the Tibetan issue as an excuse.  

"We hope and believe that the countries friendly towards China can see clearly the splitting of China objectives of the Dalai clique," said Liu. He added that China hoped its relations with Spain would be unaffected by the difficulties.

"Spain is a friendly country to China and bilateral relations in recent years have developed smoothly which has brought about concrete benefits for the two countries," said Liu.

He said he hoped the two could understand and support each other on some major issues concerning security and territorial integrity.

In response to a question concerning US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent criticism of China's military development and its lack of transparency Liu refuted the criticism and said the censure was "groundless."

"The development of China's national defense is a peaceful development and does not pose a threat to any country or person," Liu said.

China's military was defensive in nature and had no history of invading other countries, Liu said. He called on the international community to have a "clear" understanding on this point.

"We cannot accept the constant criticism from the country which has the largest military spending in the world," he said.

Rumsfeld made his remarks during a defense conference in Singapore--known as the Shangri-la Dialogue--over the weekend.

In respect of the Peruvian election Liu said China respected the choice of the people and was willing to work with the new government to push forward an all-round partnership of cooperation between the two countries.

Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia was re-elected as head of state in a vote on Sunday, according to ballot results announced by the National Electoral Procedure Office on Monday.

Garcia, a social democrat from the Peru Aprist Party, won 53.53 percent of the vote, defeating his only rival Ollanta Humala, who secured 46.47 percent in the runoff presidential election after 91 percent of the vote had been counted.

Liu told a regular press briefing that China-Peru relations had witnessed smooth development since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries 35 years ago and the Chinese government valued the friendly relationship and cooperation with the Peruvian government.

Also on Tuesday, Liu announced that China and North Korea would make detailed arrangements on joint development of oil resources in the seas bordering the two countries.

China and North Korea signed an agreement on the joint development of offshore oil on December 24, 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006)