Beijing and Tokyo reached an agreement on 20 critical issues after talks on Saturday, marking a major breakthrough in bilateral relations. Analysts said this will further strengthen the two countries’ commitment to building stable and constructive economic and trade relations in line with the new era.
These consensus points were reached during the sixth China-Japan Countrywide High-Level Economic Dialogue, the first in six years. The dialogue was chaired by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, and attended by members from both countries’ government agencies. The MoUs include promoting cooperation in the field of silver economy (economic activities for the elderly population), partnership in third-party markets, strengthening supply chain cooperation, and accelerating negotiations on the China-Japan-South Korea free trade agreement. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized that the intensive industrial cooperation between the two countries and the deep interconnectedness of their economic interests show that the two countries are partners, not competitors. “These relations benefit both peoples; they offer each other opportunities, not threats,” Wang said. Since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1972, bilateral trade has increased 300-fold, reportedly reaching $300 billion annually for the past 15 years, and total mutual investment has reached $140 billion.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202503/24/WS67e097d2a310c240449dc628.html
