Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The visit of president Hu Jintao to Japan ends today.  Last night, Hu met with emperor Akihito:  both repeated their mutual desire for increasingly close and profitable relations between the two countries. In Yokohama, he visited a recycling plant.  He repeatedly praised Japanese technology for energy conservation and recycling, and repeated the desire to "introduce Japan's advanced technology on the environment to China".  He then went to Osaka: an area that - as Hu recalled - has always had strong relations with China, up until the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.  There he met with various local authorities.

After the "historic declaration" of good will signed with prime minister Yasuo Fukuda on May 7, there were none of the important trade and economic agreements that generally accompany the foreign visits of Chinese leaders.  Instead, Hu addressed decisively secondary questions: yesterday, speaking to a group of members of parliament, Hu praised the possibility of establishing charter flights between Tokyo and Beijing for the Olympics.

Experts observe that the two countries need to emphasise the importance of friendly relations to their populations, after relations that for decades, and even recently, have been founded above all on the memory of past injustices.  Now China needs Japanese technology and investment, in order to continue its development while protecting the environment.  And Japan sees in China an immense market that could compensate for lower demand from the United States.

Japan wants to assume a role of leadership in the fight against pollution in the world, in part to justify its ambition for a seat on the United Nations security council.  While Beijing wants to quell the controversy over human rights, Tibet, Darfur, with the approach of the Olympics.

It is not for nothing that yesterday the lower house of the Japanese parliament approved a law for "non-aggressive military use" of space, for example in order to launch spy satellites, which the country has not done so far.

Moreover the visit, which had been planned for some time, came at a difficult moment for both leaders, who were content to secure a success in terms of public image: it is Hu's first visit abroad since the repression in Tibet and the international protests against the Olympic torch, while Fukuda is at his lowest level of domestic public approval. (PB)