Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba (L) stretches to shake hands with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Beijing November 23, 2011.[Photo/Agencies]

BEIJING - China and Japan pledged Wednesday to boost political trust between the two countries during Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba's visit to Beijing.

During their talks, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi described bilateral ties as "generally good" since Japan's new cabinet took office in September.

China is ready to make joint efforts with Japan to further advance their strategic relationship of mutual benefit in a sustainable way, Yang told his Japanese counterpart, Gemba.

At Yang's invitation, Gemba was in Beijing to pave way for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's planned visit to China in December. If his trip is made, Noda will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit China since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009.

Earlier this month, Noda met respectively with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the APEC meetings in Hawaii and Premier Wen Jiabao during a series of meetings for East Asian leaders held in Bali, Indonesia.

During their Hawaii meeting, the Chinese president put forward a five-point proposal on further advancing bilateral ties, including maintaining high-level contact to enhance political mutual trust, deepening mutually beneficial cooperation, and expanding cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Noda told Hu that Japan was ready to make joint efforts with China to further deepen the mutually beneficial relationship of strategic significance, improve mutual understanding between the two peoples and reinforce the foundation of bilateral ties.

"The leaders of the two nations have reached important consensus on furthering the strategic relationship of mutual benefit between China and Japan, which will play a significant role in guiding bilateral ties," Yang said.

Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. Yang said that the two nations should take advantage of the anniversary to "consolidate and expand" the consensus, boost the political trust between the two neighbors, and deepen their cooperation in terms of economy, reconstruction of disaster-hit areas and disaster prevention and alleviation.

Echoing Yang's remarks, Gemba said the development of the strategic relationship of mutual benefit and the pragmatic cooperation between Japan and China is of critical significance for the two nations as well as for the whole world.

Japan sees China's development as an opportunity and is willing to work together with the Chinese side to step up high-level exchanges and boost political trust with each other, Gemba said.

The Japanese foreign minister also pledged to enhance reciprocal cooperation with China, prompt people-to-people exchanges especially among youths of the two nations and step up coordination on international and regional issues in order to push bilateral ties to a new phase.

During his tightly-scheduled stay in Beijing, Gemba also met with Premier Wen Jiabao earlier on Wednesday. Wen called on Japan to work together with China to boost common development in East Asia.

As influential nations, China and Japan making such a joint effort will serve the common interests of not just the two countries, but also others in the region, Wen said.

"The just-concluded East Asia Summit has demonstrated a strong trend of forging solidarity, development and cooperation within the region," Wen added.

The Chinese premier attended the 6th East Asia Summit in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday and put forward a five-point proposal for boosting the regional economy, such as carrying out and improving agreed free trade arrangements, advancing the building of new free trade areas and opening markets further.

Also on Wednesday, Gemba had a closed-door meeting with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo before his evening departure for Tokyo.