China, S. Korea leaders show support for Japan near Fukushima plant

TOKYO, May 21 Kyodo -
Chinese and South Korean leaders visited near the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Saturday and munched on some local farm produce together with Prime Minister Naoto Kan to show their support for Japan's reconstruction efforts.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak sampled the produce after being welcomed by Kan at a gymnasium in Fukushima city, where evacuees of the nuclear crisis are taking shelter, after touring other areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
They were the first foreign leaders to visit the city, situated about 60 kilometers from the nuclear plant, since the tsunami knocked out its reactor cooling systems, leading to radiation leaks and the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents.
Before entering the gymnasium to offer words of encouragement to the evacuees, Kan guided them to a table of locally grown vegetables and fruit.
The leaders tasted cherries grown in the city and tomatoes and cucumbers from nearby.
''Very delicious,'' Wen told reporters with a smile after staying in the city for around an hour, before leaving for Tokyo to attend a dinner banquet to commence an annual summit of the three countries.
Wen also said that China is ready to ease restrictions on Japanese agricultural products as long as they are safe.
Later in Tokyo, Kan expressed his gratitude to the two leaders at the banquet, saying, ''I'm sure the visits will be of great help in dispelling misinformation about products in Fukushima and other disaster-hit areas.''
The visits by Wen and Lee to Fukushima were strongly desired by Kan at a time when he is still struggling to restore domestic and international confidence in Japan's ability to ensure the safety not only of its nuclear facilities but its products in general.
Kan is hoping that the get-together in Fukushima will help to dispel rumors that Japan and its products are unsafe due to radioactive contamination from the plant, located on the Pacific coast around 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
Before meeting Kan in Fukushima in the afternoon, Wen and Lee traveled separately to areas in Miyagi Prefecture, also hard hit by the 9.0 magnitude quake and ensuing tsunami.
Both offered flowers and a moment of silence during their tours of the prefecture. China and South Korea quickly sent rescue teams and necessary supplies to the area after the twin natural disasters, which killed at least 15,000 people and left around 10,000 others missing mostly in the northeastern region of Tohoku.
Wearing a navy blue work jacket, Lee went to the tsunami-stricken city of Natori to learn more about the damage and expressed his sympathy directly to some of the local residents.
''I hope that Japan will quickly rebuild,'' Lee said, as he was being briefed by Natori officials.
During the two-day trilateral summit, Kan will seek to persuade China and South Korea to review their import restrictions on Japanese food products imposed following the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Compared with industrial products, Japan's food exports to China and South Korea as well as to other parts of the world are minor, but the Japanese government and the private sector are concerned about the negative ripple effects throughout the economy if the country's image is affected by prolonged import restrictions.
The three leaders are expected to agree that ensuring the smooth flow of goods and people between the three countries, which now account for nearly 20 percent of global gross domestic product, is essential for Japan's recovery.
But it remains to be seen to what extent the three countries will be able to agree on the scope of how to deal with the current restrictions on Japanese food at their fourth trilateral summit, at which the leaders will announce measures to improve disaster management and nuclear safety.
Japan's ties with the two countries from time to time have become strained over historical and territorial issues. But as Kan himself said at a news conference this week, Tokyo's bonds with Beijing and Seoul have deepened since the natural calamities.
The trilateral summit was first held in 1999 as an informal breakfast gathering on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus the three countries.
China and South Korea agreed in 2008 to hold three-way meetings every year in their countries in rotation as a way to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation in a future-oriented manner.