Japan's Fukuda on charm offensive in China

BEIJING, Dec 29 (Reuters)

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda played a friendly game of catch on his visit to China on Saturday, a symbol of warming ties between the North Asian rivals despite an intractable row over gas resources in disputed waters.

In a show of amity that would have been unthinkable two years ago, when anti-Japanese protests erupted on Chinese streets, Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao - both decked out in baseball uniforms - tossed a ball in a state guesthouse gym.

Fukuda, who took power earlier this year, has said he would not visit Japan's Yasukuni war shrine, which is seen by critics as a symbol of the country's militarist past, cooling tension over Japan's wartime invasion of China. "The Chinese side has really welcomed that, this kind of attitude toward the history question. Because after Fukuda took power, he very clearly said he would pay attention to Asian relations, and in particular relations with China," said Huang Dahui, a Japan expert at the People's University of China.

"So I think this has given China's leaders certain hopes and expectations," he said. Talks between Fukuda and Wen on Friday yielded no major breakthroughs on another key issue dogging relations, a row over how to develop natural gas resources in a disputed part of the East China Sea.