It's high time Japan mended fences with neighbours

THE historic meeting between the leaders of China and Japan, hours before the Apec Economic Leaders' Meeting convened in Beijing, hopefully will lead to an easing of tensions between the two countries, ending a period when the relationship was in free fall.

While the four-point agreement announced last Friday was commendable, neither side has actually changed its position in public. Commenting on "severe difficulties" in the relationship, President Xi Jinping said "the rights and wrongs behind them are crystal clear", implying the responsibility was on the Japanese side.

This is not a time for trading accusations though China, as the victim of Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 1940s, can occupy the moral high ground. Great nations, such as Japan, cannot be expected to grovel in public, but neither can they evade responsibility for their actions, as many perceive Premier Shinzo Abe to have done, with his denials of invasion and of responsibility on the "comfort women" and war crimes issues.