China lays groundwork for Japan visit

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi left Thursday for a trip to Japan where he is expected to finalize details for a landmark official visit by China's president early next month.

The visit by President Hu Jintao, expected to start May 6, will be the first such trip by a Chinese president in 10 years, and is the latest sign of warming ties between the rival neighbors.

A Foreign Ministry official confirmed that Yang left Thursday morning but she gave no details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, as is common for Chinese bureaucrats.

Japanese media have already been playing up Hu's visit, with Kyodo News agency on Wednesday citing unidentified officials as saying Hu and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda would play pingpong at a university in Tokyo.

Such an event would be reminiscent of the "pingpong diplomacy" of the early 1970s, when an exchange of players from the United States and China marked a thaw in relations between Washington and Beijing.

The countries have improved ties recently after they plunged over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a Tokyo war shrine, and disputes over issues including exploitation of gas deposits in the East China Sea.

A series of bilateral talks on the gas deposits have not appeared to bring the two sides any closer to a resolution.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said the details of Hu's visit have not been decided, but sports have played important roles in recent summits.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao played baseball when he visited Japan last September, and Fukuda and he tossed around a baseball when the Japanese prime minister visited China in December.

Hu is expected to give a lecture at Waseda University, Fukuda's alma mater, on May 8, and then play pingpong with the prime minister, Kyodo reported. E-mail to a friend

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