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Protests as Hu arrives in Tokyo

Article published on the 2008-05-06 Latest update 2008-05-10 09:07 TU

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda.(Photos: Reuters)

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda.
(Photos: Reuters)

Protestors are out in force in Tokyo as Chinese president Hu Jintao arrived on an official trip to Japan. Hu is set to meet the country's prime minister Yasuo Fukuda as well as business leaders. Thousands of police were deployed across the capital to protect the Chinese president, as demonstrators denounced Beijing's crackdown in Tibet.

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Waving Tibetan flags, nearly 1,000 people including Tibetans and members of China's Uighur minority marched through central Tokyo holding signs that read, "Hu Jintao, respect the Olympic spirit" and, "Don't kill our friends."

Hu was last in Japan as vice president in 1998, ahead of the first ever state visit that year by then president Jiang Zemin. This trip was planned well before China came under fire over its recent clampdown in Tibet, and this week's renewed talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama, the Himalayan region's exiled spiritual leader. 

During the five-day visit, Hu is expected to try to mend relations between Asia's two biggest economies.  He and Japan's prime minister Yasuo Fukuda are due to discuss trade, security and a dispute over undersea gas fields.  Also on their reported agenda, a ping-pong match.

The Chinese leader is expected to sign a joint statement on climate change, while other difficult issues including wartime history and disputed maritime borders are likely to be played down.

The Chinese President said before he left Beijing on Monday that he hoped the visit would herald an "everlasting warm spring of friendship" between the two neighbours.

China suspended high-level contact with Japan from 2001 to 2006 during the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, after he made repeated visits to the Yasukuni war shrine.  Most Chinese believe the shrine glorifies Japanese military history. Fukuda has tried to repair the damage by promising not to visit the shrine while he is in power and by calling for Japan to be humble about its past.