Gemba asks China to cooperate on maritime affairs

TOKYO, Sept. 9 Kyodo - Japan's new Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba held a telephone conference Friday with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, telling him Tokyo wants to cooperate on maritime security and resume talks toward a treaty on joint gas field development in the East China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said.
During the 25-minute conversation, Yang stopped short of saying whether Beijing would restart negotiations in the near future on the treaty, which have been put off due to China's protest over Japan's handling of maritime collisions near the Senkaku Islands in September last year, according to an official at the Japanese ministry.
Gemba and Yang, however, agreed that Japan and China will continue to work closely on bilateral and global issues, while looking forward to celebrating the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the ministry said.
''In particular, I'd like to advance cooperation on maritime affairs such as establishing a multi-layered crisis-management mechanism in preparation for unforeseeable circumstances,'' the ministry quoted Gemba, who became Japan's foreign minister a week ago, as saying during the conversation.
At a news conference later in the day, Gemba said that he got ''the impression that (Yang) is positive'' about his proposal to strengthen cooperation on maritime affairs.
Bilateral ties deteriorated sharply last year after the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain by Japanese authorities following collisions with Japanese patrol vessels off the islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by China and Taiwan.
Japan maintains the islands are an integral part of Japanese territory.