The warming China-Japan ties may have new chances this year for improvement, but history issues are still likely to haunt the relationship, said Chinese officials and legislators in Beijing.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties, and the two sides should grasp the important opportunity to handle well the fundamental political issues concerning their relations, said Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on the sidelines of the parliament's annual session Tuesday.

Li was in Tokyo earlier in February to pave the way for an April visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the highest-level Chinese mission to Japan since 2000.

Wen's visit will be of great importance to bilateral cooperation, Li said.

Some deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, deemed it another important step to warm the ties following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China last October.

Abe's visit, described as a thaw of the deadlocked China-Japan political relationship, helped reach a consensus on the realization of the lofty goals of peaceful co-existence, friendship from generation to generation, reciprocal cooperation and common development.

Since then, meetings between the two countries' leaders on different occasions also delivered a signal toward coziness, said Liu Jiangyong, a professor with the Institute of International Studies of Qinghua University.

The improvement has been made possible by September's retirement of then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who pushed the bilateral relations into a deep chill, largely due to his annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where World War II criminals are enshrined.

People of China and Japan's neighboring countries considered Koizumi's homage an attempt to shrug off responsibilities for Japan's wartime history. In April 2005, a Japanese history textbook that glossed over its war atrocities sparked nationwide protests in China.

Abe has strove to mend up Japans' relations with China since taking office, but history issues are still worth alert, Liu Jiangyong said.

New disputes over history issues have already surfaced, as Abe said Monday that Japan would not offer any new apology over the wartime sex slavery issue since "there is no evidence to prove there was coercion" exercised over these women.

"The Japanese government should take history as a mirror and look forward to the future to properly handle the China-Japan relations for mutual interests," said Chen Derong, mayor of Jiaxing City in eastern Zhejiang Province. Chen is also an NPC deputy.

Experts believe that war scars may be touched more this year which marks the 70th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge incident and Japanese invaders' slaughter of Chinese civilians in Nanjing.

Putting history aside, the two countries are also actively searching for ways out of present frictions. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Tuesday that China would like to carry out consultation with Japan on East China Sea development, seeking methods acceptable to both sides.

Li also noted that China would like to advance good-neighborly and friendly cooperation with Japan in all areas, including economy, trade, science, technology, environmental protection and international affairs.

Last year saw the trade between China and Japan climb to 184.4 billion U.S. dollars. This year's bilateral trade volume is expected to reach 200 billion U.S. dollars.

Last October, China and Japan overcame political obstacles and reached agreements on facilitating healthier development of bilateral relations, which brought bilateral ties back on track to improvement, Li Zhaoxing noted.

"The result came from concerted efforts of both countries, governments and peoples. It didn't come by easily and is worth being cherished," he said.

Source: Xinhua