TOKYO: Japan's incoming prime minister will send a special envoy to China on a fence-mending trip, a report said Saturday, after he announced plans to dispatch an emissary on a similar mission to South Korea.
Ties between Japan and China have become increasingly strained over a disputed island chain - the Tokyo-controlled Senkakus, which Beijing calls the Diaoyus -- with neither side willing to budge after months of bitter wrangling.
Shinzo Abe will send a senior official from his Liberal Democratic Party next month to deliver a letter to Chinese authorities, the business daily Nikkei reported, without offering details or citing sources.
The report comes a day after China sent ships into territorial waters around disputed islands, in the first incursion since Japan elected a new government.
Abe said on Friday he will dispatch former finance minister Fukushiro Nukaga to deliver another letter to South Korea's president-elect Park Geun-Hye, just days after the two triumphed in their own national elections.
Tokyo is embroiled in a separate row with Seoul over a different set of disputed islets, with tensions flaring up earlier this year after outgoing South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak paid a sudden visit to the islands.
"Abe intends to improve frayed ties with South Korea and with China by sending special envoys," the Nikkei said.
LDP officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
- AFP/al
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