TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao begins a three-day visit to Japan on Wednesday. It will mark the first visit of a Chinese premier to Japan since 2000, following a freeze in ties prompted by former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine.
Here are key facts about China-Japan relations.
HISTORY AND YASUKUNI SHRINE
• Japan invaded and occupied large parts of China from 1931 to 1945 and memories of Japanese atrocities run deep, especially the Nanjing massacre of 1937, when China says Japanese soldiers killed 300,000 people in what was then the national capital. An Allied war tribunal after World War II put the number of civilians killed at around 142,000, while some conservative Japanese scholars and politicians say no massacre occurred.
• China and other Asian countries are critical of Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine to war dead, which they call a symbol of past militarism. Among the some 2.5 million souls honored in the Shinto shrine are 14 Class A war criminals convicted by an Allied tribunal after World War II.
• Koizumi, prime minister from 2001 to 2006, made annual visits to the shrine while in office, leading Beijing to protest and stop bilateral summits. The Japanese leader said he paid his respects at Yasukuni to honor the war dead and to promise Japan would never again go to war.
• Incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited Yasukuni in the past, but has not gone since he took office in September 2006 and has kept silent on whether he will go.
ECONOMICS AND TRADE
• Japan is the economic giant of Asia, with an economy worth $4.5 trillion in 2005, while China's was worth $2.2 trillion. But China's economy is growing fast and may rival Japan's in size after another decade.
• Trade between China and Japan has grown strongly despite tense political relations. China including Hong Kong is already Japan's biggest trade partner, ahead of the United States, with two-way trade totaling nearly 29 trillion yen ($240 billion) last year, according to Japanese data. That was up 16 percent from the previous year.
THE EAST CHINA SEA DISPUTE
• China and Japan disagree over the boundary between their exclusive economic zones in the sea between them. Japan says the median line between the two countries' coasts is the boundary. China says the boundary is defined by its continental shelf, extending its claimed zone beyond the median line.
• Tokyo objects to Chinese development of the Chunxiao gas field in seas close to Japan's claimed boundary. Japan fears drilling there could drain gas from what it claims is its side of the line through a honeycomb of seabed rocks.
• The sea also holds a group of eight islets, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, over which both Japan and China claim sovereignty.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
• Japan wants a bigger global security role and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. It worries about China's rising military spending and has opposed the lifting of the European Union's 1989 ban on selling arms to China, imposed after Beijing's Tiananmen Square crackdown.
• Beijing is wary of Tokyo's efforts to escape the limits of its pacifist postwar constitution on military activity abroad.
• Sometimes violent protests against Japan erupted in China in April 2005, when thousands took to city streets to oppose Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and to denounce accounts in some Japanese government-approved history textbooks as whitewashing.
Sources: Reuters; Japan External Trade Organisation (www.jetro.go.jp); Selig Harrison (ed.), Seabed Petroleum in Northeast Asia
prompted by
《be ～》促して～させる
atrocity
残虐行為｛ざんぎゃく こうい｝、極悪｛ごくあく｝、残虐｛ざんぎゃく｝、非道｛ひどう｝、暴虐｛ぼうぎゃく｝さ
tribunal
法廷｛ほうてい｝、裁判所｛さいばんしょ｝、裁決機関｛さいけつ きかん｝
protest
抗議｛こうぎ｝、異議｛いぎ｝、反対｛はんたい｝
bilateral
二者会議｛にしゃ かいぎ｝、二国間協議｛にこくかん きょうぎ｝、二者間協定｛にしゃ かん きょうてい｝
incumbent
現職（者）｛げんしょく（しゃ）｝、在任（者）｛ざいにん（しゃ）｝、現職議員｛げんしょく ぎいん｝
exclusive
排他的｛はいたてき｝な人、交際相手｛こうさい あいて｝を限定｛げんてい｝する人［組織｛そしき｝・グループ］
独占記事｛どくせん きじ｝、スクープ、特ダネ 独占的｛どくせんてき｝な権利｛けんり｝、専売権｛せんばい けん｝
median line
中線｛ちゅうせん｝、正中線｛せいちゅうせん｝
lifting of the ban
解禁｛かいきん｝
impose
（人に厚かましく）出しゃばる、威圧｛いあつ｝する、つけ込む、乱用｛らんよう｝する、だます
wary
警戒｛けいかい｝している、慎重｛しんちょう｝な、油断｛ゆだん｝のない、用心深い｛ようじんぶかい｝、細心｛さいしん｝の、気を付ける、周到｛しゅうとう｝な
pacifist
平和主義者｛へいわ しゅぎ しゃ｝、
bid
入札｛にゅうさつ｝、入札｛にゅうさつ｝の機会｛きかい｝、入札｛にゅうさつ｝の順番｛じゅんばん｝、競売｛きょうばい｝［入札｛にゅうさつ｝］に付されるもの
denounce
〔公然｛こうぜん｝と〕非難｛ひなん｝する、責める、非を鳴らす、糾弾｛きゅうだん｝する
