Japan stuck to its guns Tuesday in a row with China over a disputed island chain but also said it was open to high-level talks to defuse the worst spat in years between the Asian powers.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan now plans to attend an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Brussels next week, officials said, making clear that he would be open to talks with Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao on the sidelines.
Asia’s two biggest economies have argued bitterly for three weeks over Japan’s arrest of a Chinese skipper whose boat collided with …

Tensions between China and Japan over the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain took another turn for the worse Sunday as Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan rejected China’s repeated demand that Tokyo apologize and offer compensation for the incident.
The Chinese authorities also flexed their muscles on a wider front, becoming more assertive on trade policy, even as they continued to hold four Japanese nationals whose detention two days ago was widely seen as a move by China to put pressure on Tokyo to release the captain, who was welcomed …

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday made Japan’s pitch for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council, saying the non- nuclear country that has suffered the devastation of atomic bombings deserves a seat on the council in the 21st century.
In his speech to the general debate session of the U.N. General Assembly, Kan expressed Japan’s resolve to play a more responsible role for the peace and security of the international community.
The premier said reform of the most powerful decision-making body at the United Nations is "indispensable" so that it …

Four Japanese nationals have been arrested in China, and are being investigated for entering a military zone without authorization and videotaping military targets, Chinese state media said.
The arrests come amid the two nations’ diplomatic battle over Japan’s detainment of a Chinese fishing captain.
"We believe if our employees knew about the area being off-limits, or the regulation that prohibited cameras in the location, they would not have taken such action," the company’s executive director said at a news conference Friday in Tokyo.
The four Japanese nationals were sent to China for a …

China on Saturday demanded Japan apologize for holding a Chinese boat captain, showing few outward signs of softening in a dispute between the two Asian economic powers after Japan gave ground and released him.
The fishing trawler captain, Zhan Qixiong, flew out of Japan on a chartered plane that took him to the coastal Chinese city of Fuzhou, but Beijing’s response suggested it still harbored some rancor.
The release followed the detention of four Japanese nationals on suspicion of violating Chinese law regarding the protection of military facilities, though Japanese Chief Cabinet …

Ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa, seeking to become Japan’s new prime minister, said Tuesday he would not step down even if a judicial review panel orders his indictment in a political funds scandal.Ozawa, vying with Prime Minister Naoto Kan for the ruling party presidency customarily coupled with the premiership, made the comment amid reports that the panel had launched its review of a decision by prosecutors not to indict him."There is no need for me to leave my party or my job" if the panel orders prosecutors to indict him, …

Japan’s public pension fund, the world’s largest, will sell about 4 trillion yen ($48 billion) in assets this fiscal year to fund rising payouts as the nation’s population ages.
That follows asset sales of 720 billion yen, all in Japanese bonds, in the fiscal year ended in March, Takahiro Mitani, president of the Government Pension Investment Fund, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday.
“Insurance premiums rise little by little every year, but it isn’t catching up with the increase in payouts,” said Mitani, a former executive director at the Bank of …

Japan is known as the biggest consumer of tuna. Be it raw for sushi or sashimi or fried, broiled or canned, tuna is an important element of the food culture.
But concerns are growing because tuna is disappearing, and this is putting Japan in a difficult diplomatic position.
How much tuna does Japan consume annually, and how does the rest of the world feel? Following are basic questions and answers:
How many types of tuna are there?
Read the rest of the story: Does Japan’s affair with tuna mean loving it to extinction?.

Japan opened up the secretive world of its capital punishment system to the public Friday, offering journalists a rare tour of Tokyo’s main gallows in an effort to stoke debate about a practice widely supported here.

British and Japanese ultranationalists will shrug off protests from war veterans in an unlikely show of solidarity at a controversial Tokyo memorial today, on the 65th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War.
The British National Party member Adam Walker and France’s most famous Holocaust-denier, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will be among a group of European delegates to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which venerates the militarists who led Japan’s brief but disastrous rampage across Asia.
"I realise that there are war veterans in the UK who will see this as an …