Japan and China have signed 2.6 billion dollars in business deals and touted their warmer ties during a rare visit to Beijing by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as both face trade challenges from US President Donald Trump.
Abe met Chinese President Xi Jinping after a full day of activities that included talks with Premier Li Keqiang and an honour guard with Japan's flag raised outside the Great Hall of the People across from Tiananmen Square.
Relations between Asia's two biggest economies have improved in recent years after they sunk to new lows in 2012 when Tokyo nationalised disputed islands claimed by Beijing. The last official visit to Beijing by a Japanese prime minister was in 2011.