Скачать или смотреть Envoy says Japan and China should settle differences

(30 Nov 2005) SHOTLIST

1. Wide of media conference at the Foreign Correspondent's Club
2. Cutaway reporter asking a question
3. SOUNBITE (English) Thomas Schieffer, US Ambassador to Japan:
"I don't know that we have a direct role to play in that regard but I think that the United States hopes that Japan and China can work out their differences because it's important for the whole region that the people get along out here. But the United States is not the final arbiter of every dispute and I think that the differences that the Chinese and Japanese are having are ones that they have to address, and they have to come to a conclusion as in how to do that."
4. Press conference


STORYLINE

Japan and China must resolve their differences in the interest of regional stability, the US ambassador to Tokyo said on Wednesday, adding that Washington's role as a mediator was limited.

"We hope Japan and China can work out their differences because it's important for the whole region that the people get along out here," Schieffer said at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Tokyo.

"I don't know that we have a direct role to play," he said. "We aren't the final arbiter of every dispute."

Despite growing trade between the economic powerhouses, diplomatic relations between China and Japan have sunk to their lowest in decades amid a series of territorial disputes and disagreements over interpretations of wartime history.

Relations plunged again last month when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited a controversial Tokyo war shrine for the fifth time since taking office in 2001, prompting protests from China and South Korea and complicating diplomatic relations.

Also hindering relations between the regional rivals lies a dispute over undersea gas deposits, ownership of islets in the East China Sea and Japan's adoption of textbooks that critics say whitewash World War II atrocities.

These grievances helped trigger anti-Japanese riots in China earlier this year.

Last week, China's ambassador to Tokyo called the visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine the most pressing issue facing their countries and said the issue needs to be resolved as quickly as possible.

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