New governor of Tokyo said he wanted to help improve Japan-China ties through his visit to China next week, saying he could help with Beijing’s air pollution and demographic challenges.

    NEWLY elected Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe announced Monday he would visit Beijing next week on a trip that will be closely watched in China and Japan for ways to mend rocky bilateral relations.

    The trip comes on the heels of a visit by Hu Deping — widely seen as a special envoy from Beijing — to Japan, where the “princeling” held a private meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week.

    The two visits are seen as back-channel efforts by the Asian neighbors to repair ties amid a lack of high-level exchanges since maritime disputes and historical grievances caused the bilateral relationship to plunge to a new low. Scholars, however, remain sceptical that a diplomatic breakthrough is imminent.

    Masuzoe said Monday that he would visit Beijing between Thursday and Saturday next week.

    “This is the first time in 18 years that a Tokyo governor was invited by a Beijing mayor for a visit,” said Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

    “We expect that the governor will contribute to the friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two cities,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying commented earlier.

    Boosted by support from Abe’s administration, Masuzoe won a landslide victory and replaced Naoki Inose April 6, who resigned in December because of a loan scandal, as Tokyo governor.

    The former health minister said that he wished to improve the relationship between China and Japan through city-level diplomacy and that he would like to co-operate with Beijing in tackling the city’s air pollution.

    “The bilateral relationship with [China] is so bad, as you know. Foreign diplomacy is almost broken,” Masuzoe said in his first briefing with foreign media a week ago.

    “I’d like to improve it by helping with their environmental problems and also social welfare. I am not a foreign minister, nor prime minister. But at least, as the governor of Tokyo, I can do something,” he added.

    The Tokyo’s chief added that he would work with Beijing on welfare programs as China faces a demographic struggle, partly owing to its one-child policy.

    Japan also has a rapidly ageing population which is straining the public purse. It also has a low birth rate.

    He added that he will meet Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun and that he hopes to learn from Beijing’s experiences hosting the Olympic Games in 2008.

    Tokyo is preparing to host the 2020 Games and faces a massive task in building new venues and updating the city’s infrastructure.

    Last year, Masuzoe visited China and met with former state councilor Tang Jiaxuan, an influential figure on Japan-related affairs who now heads the China-Japan Friendship Association.

    Back in Tokyo, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stated Tokyo expects the visit to improve the bilateral relationship.

    Suga said Masuzoe had already intended to visit China when he met Abe on April 10, Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting System reported.

    “(Beijing and Tokyo) have a sister cities relationship and ... the Abe administration hopes to proactively make progress with China,” Suga told reporters on Tuesday.

    Masuzoe will be the first Tokyo governor to visit Beijing in 18 years. From 1999 to 2012, the Japanese capital was governed by Shintaro Ishihara, whose campaign to nationalize a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea angered Beijing and caused diplomatic ructions that severely strained ties.

    While in Beijing, Masuzoe is expected to meet municipal-level officials. “This is at most an attempt to improve the relationship through city-level exchanges,” said Zhou Yongsheng, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University. “It wouldn’t be wise to expect a breakthrough in the near future. Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine has severely damaged bilateral relationships.”

    The Japanese prime minister’s visit to the shrine in Tokyo, which honors the nation’s war dead including 14 war criminals from the second world war, was condemned by China and South Korea, which see the shrine as honoring wartime atrocities. Beijing said Abe would not be welcome in China.

    Since taking office in December 2012, Abe has not held a summit with President Xi Jinping despite repeated attempts to arrange one. Both China and Japan say they are open to diplomatic discussions and each blames the other side for closing the door to talks.

    Diplomatic sources said the Japanese foreign ministry had approached various Chinese dignitaries to visit Japan in an effort to repair ties. All but Hu, son of late Communist Party general secretary Hu Yaobang , turned down its invitations, they said. Hu’s background prompted hopes he would be a direct messenger between the nations’ leaders.

    Masuzoe, 65, a former health minister who ran as an independent but was endorsed by the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its leader, Abe, easily won the election April 6.

    His victory is a boost for Abe and his effort to salvage Japan’s battered nuclear industry, which provided close to 30 percent of Japan’s electricity before the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi power station in March 2011.

    Masuzoe proposed during the campaign that Japan gradually reduce its dependence on nuclear power, and promised to greatly increase the ratio of electricity consumed in Tokyo that is derived from renewable sources such as solar and wind farms, currently just 6 percent.

    Born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Masuzoe graduated from Yahata High School and entered the University of Tokyo, where he majored in the research of French political procedures.

    He later spent several years in Europe as a research fellow at the University of Paris and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

    He established the Masuzoe Institute of Political Economy and became known as a frequent guest on political talk shows in Japan, particularly the popular “TV Tackle” program hosted by Takeshi Kitano.

    Masuzoe ran for Tokyo governor in the 1999 election, placing third among nineteen candidates.

    Masuzoe duly formed the Liberal Democratic Party BoJ Law Reform Group in 2001. He set up a study group within the LDP in early 2010 to study economic reforms.

    By the same year, Masuzoe had become an extremely popular political figure, with opinion polls suggesting that he was the public’s most favored prime ministerial candidate by a wide margin.

    Following the resounding victory of Abe and the LDP in the general election, Masuzoe announced in June 2013 that he would not stand for re-election in the July 2013 House of Councilors election, stating that “I have done the best I could for nearly three years, but I was unable to boost [the party’s] strength.”

    Masuzoe has married three times. Masuzoe is known to have five children, three of which were born out of wedlock by two other women.(SD-Agencies)