BEIJING, Dec. 18 (ChinaMil) -- General Xu Qiliang, Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), met with the visiting Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono in Beijing on Wednesday.

Gen. Xu said that China and Japan are geographically and culturally close to each other and have converging interests. President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have reached important consensus on jointly building China-Japan relations in line with the requirements of the new era and led bilateral relations to sound development. China is ready to work with Japan to jointly safeguard international and regional peace and stability and promote security and development of the two countries and the region.

In recent years, the defense cooperation between China and Japan has regained development momentum and scored many achievements. It is hoped that the defense departments of the two countries will make joint efforts to translate the political consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries into concrete policies and actions, promote the building of a constructive bilateral security relationship and contribute to the development of the defense relations and bilateral ties between the two countries, Gen. Xu added.

Taro Kono said that Japan attaches great importance to developing relations with China and would like to take this visit as an opportunity to continuously strengthen defense exchanges and cooperation with China, deepen mutual understanding, avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation, actively manage differences, so as to maintain the sound momentum of improvement and development of Japan-China relations.