Wednesday May 7, 03:09 PM

Japan, China vow to deepen trust, settle gas row

TOKYO (Reuters) - The leaders of Japan and China vowed on Wednesday to deepen trust and cooperate on issues from climate change to regional security, and said they were on track to resolve a feud over energy rights in the East China Sea.

Friction over history, undersea gas reserves, military plans, international influence and consumer safety has divided the neighbors, and mutual public distrust runs deep.

The summit between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is meant to ease the feuding and build on a recent warming in often chilly ties, settling on a blueprint for relations between Asia's two economic giants.

"We both believe relations between China and Japan are at a new starting point," Hu told a joint news conference with Fukuda.

The two leaders also said they had made progress to resolve a dispute over rights to gas beneath the East China Sea.

"There are already prospects for resolving this issue," Hu said, adding the two sides would continue consultation and seek a solution as soon as possible.

The 71-year-old Fukuda, long a proponent of warmer ties with Japan's Asian neighbors, said good two-way ties were vital for the region and the world.

"Japan and China both need to create a good future for Asia and the world together by recognizing their responsibility in the international community and by constantly deepening mutual understanding and mutual trust, and expanding mutual cooperation," Fukuda told the news conference.

The two leaders signed a joint document on future relations between the two Asian economic giants, agreeing that "cooperation for peace and friendship is the only option for Japan and China."

Sino-Japanese ties chilled during Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term as Japan's prime minister over his visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, seen by critics as an offensive symbol of wartime misdeeds, but improved after Koizumi stepped down.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley, Yoko Kubota and Isabel Reynolds)