Japan says relations with China improving in annual diplomacy report
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Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said diplomatic relations between Japan and China were moving on the track of improvement following a maritime collision in the East China Sea last September which soured bilateral ties.
In Japan's Diplomatic Blue Book 2011, an annual report on Japan 's foreign policy and activities published by Japan's foreign ministry and released Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto called for urgent efforts to ensure that public feelings in both nations improve.
Japan's latest Blue Book also said Japan is determined to resume talks with China, its biggest trading partner, on a collaborative oil development project in the East China Sea.
According to the official book on Japan's foreign policies and activities, Japan wishes to commence bilateral talks with China on the prospective project at the earliest possible opportunity.
The book also calls for deepening Japan's alliance with the United States and reiterates the nation's official stance that the United States is the bedrock of Japan's diplomacy.
Japan's foreign ministry said Japan and the United States will release a joint statement on a 21st century vision for the future of the ongoing alliance when Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan visits the United States in the first half of 2011.
The relocating of the controversial U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station within Okinawa Prefecture, based on a bilateral accord inked between Japan and the U.S. last May that reaffirmed a decades-old plan to move the base within the southern prefecture, will also be brought to fruition, the book said.
Regarding the devastation caused by the March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that led to a nuclear crisis at a power plant, Matsumoto vowed in the report to tackle the biggest national crisis in Japan's postwar period through effective diplomacy.
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