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Toxic dumplings, gas row on agenda as China, Japan meet
2008-02-22
High-level talks between Japan and China kicked off here Friday, with rows over toxic dumplings and the gas-rich East China Sea to be discussed, Chinese officials said. Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi lead discussions at the eighth round of the nations' "strategic dialogue," a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said. "If it is a concern of both sides, it will be discussed," the spokesman told AFP when asked if the food poisoning scare in Japan from imported Chinese dumplings and the long-running territorial dispute would be on the agenda. The two-day talks started Friday afternoon and were set to finish on Saturday, a spokeswoman from the Chinese foreign ministry said. China and Japan have launched a joint investigation into the dumpling scare that so far has resulted in 10 Japanese consumers being poisoned by pesticides after eating tainted dumplings imported from China. Chinese President Hu Jintao dispatched his top envoy Tang Jiaxuan to Tokyo to address the issue and on Thursday expressed sympathy to the Japanese people who fell ill. China's official Xinhua news agency also reported Thursday that a team of police officials would be sent to Japan to help investigate how the dumplings were poisoned. Meanwhile, in a fresh twist to a separate food scare, China said meat buns found with traces of pesticide in Japan were made by Japanese-owned factories in China. An investigation by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the steamed buns were made in two Japanese factories operating in the eastern province of Shandong. It did not specify if the ingredients for the buns were produced in China. The strategic dialogue has been a forum to discuss the two nations' rival claims to gas-rich reserves in the East China Sea, and Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Thursday the issue would again be on the agenda. During a visit to China in December, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Hu agreed to seek a resolution on the gas dispute at an early date, although no major breakthrough has yet been made. Hu is expected to visit Japan in the next few months.
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