The leaders of China and Japan agreed to mend ruptured ties during ice-breaking talks in Jakarta on Saturday, though Chinese President Hu Jintao said Japan needed to learn from its wartime past. They met a day after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made an unusually public apology for Japan's past atrocities in Asia during a summit of Asian and African leaders in the Indonesian capital. Ties between the Asian giants had deteriorated to their worst since the normalisation of relations in 1972, putting at risk economic links worth $212 billion in annual trade. "If the appearance of serious problems in Sino-Japanese relations is not handled properly ... not only will it be detrimental to China and Japan, but it will also affect the stability and development of Asia," Hu told reporters. "Remorse expressed for the war of aggression should be translated into action. (Japan) should never do anything again that would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people or the people of other Asian countries." Koizumi said he had had a frank and meaningful exchange with Hu, adding the two had agreed not to debate Japan's wartime history or visits by Japanese politicians to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, both sources of much of the friction. --More 2334 Local Time 2034 GMT
