Chinese President Xi Jinping greets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his official visit to Beijing, saying that he appreciated Abe's repeated willingness to improve China-Japan relations in recent years.Xi pointed out that as two of the world's major economies, the long-term sound and stable development of China-Japan relations is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and is also widely expected by the region and the international community.Xi stressed that under the new situation, China and Japan are increasingly interdependent in the bilateral arena and have broad and diverse common interests and common concerns.The two countries should practice the political consensus of "mutually becoming partners and not posing threats," Xi said.Abe said that the Japanese side welcomes and supports China to further expand its opening-up to the outside world and is willing to continue to actively participate in China's development process, China Central Television reported on Friday."The Japanese side is willing to work with China to enhance high-level and all levels of exchanges, properly manage and control the differences between the two sides, and work together for regional stability and prosperity," he said.Abe said the Belt and Road initiative is a promising concept. Japan is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in a wide range of fields, including jointly exploring third-party markets.Earlier on Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang welcomed Abe at the first Forum of China-Japan Cooperation on the Third-Party Market, where he announced that the two countries had inked more than 50 business deals worth more than $18 billion.Chinese experts pointed out that China and Japan are poised to reset their bilateral relations, and this improvement in bilateral relations will lead the integrity of East Asia."Cooperation in third-party markets shows the nature of the relationship between China and Japan has been transformed from competitive to cooperative," Ruan Zongze, executive vice president of the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Friday.This would serve as an impetus for Beijing and Tokyo to deepen the bilateral relationship and move forward to a new phase, Ruan said.Akira Terashi, an employee from a large Japanese material company who attended the forum, said "the overall atmosphere of the forum was friendly and I was very happy to be a representative of the Japanese side."If Chinese companies have projects in third-party markets in the future, they can use materials provided by Japanese companies, Terashi told the Global Times on Friday, adding that he hoped to find new business opportunities.Shi Ming, director of the China-Japan-South Korea Enterprises Exchange Center under the China Chamber of International Commerce, said that the idea of third-party market cooperation is a new concept proposed by China and Japan.The forum is a good start and it has established a communication platform to exchange information and deepen understanding, he said."Although there may be some difficulties in the actual operation stage, I believe that after continuous communication and integration, the two sides will find more cooperation opportunities in the third-party market to achieve mutual benefit and win-win between the two parties and the three parties," Shi told the Global Times on Friday.China's central bank said Friday that it has inked a bilateral currency swap agreement with its counterpart in Japan. The agreement will allow the two sides to swap a total of 200 billion yuan ($28.8 billion) for 3.4 trillion Japanese yen and vice versa, the People's Bank of China (PBC) said on its website.The two sides also signed a memorandum of cooperation for a yuan clearing arrangement in Japan. The PBC said the Bank of China's Tokyo branch has been designated as the yuan clearing bank in Japan.The move will help enhance the financial stability of the two countries and facilitate bilateral economic and financial exchanges, Ruan said.Some Western media speculated that ties between China and Japan are growing because of recent US policy changes.Ruan argued that the improvement in bilateral ties is due to pragmatic concerns. "The relationship between China, Japan and the US should be cooperative. In future, China-Japan relations may face disturbances from the US, but Japan should abandon its zero-sum mentality and not take sides."