Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with former Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, who is head of the Japanese Association for the Promotion of International Trade, in Beijing on April 14, 2015. [Photo: Xinhua]

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has sat down for a high-level meeting with a Japanese delegation here in Beijing.

The Japanese group is headed by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, now head of the Japanese Association for the Promotion of International Trade.

It meeting with the group, Premier Li Keqiang says the key to the bilateral relationship is how Japan views and treats historical issues.

"The Chinese government always pays a great deal of attention to Sino-Japanese relations. We are willing to push forward the bilateral ties, using the principles of taking history as a mirror and facing the future, and on the basis of the four political documents."

The four documents lay out China and Japan's positions on historical issues.

It's allowed for the resumption of higher-level government interactions after a number of years of political detachment.

For his part, Yohei Kono says the Japanese side also wants to see an improvement of bilateral ties.

"Our visit to China is very successful and it comes after the leaders of Japan and China managed to have a meeting last year with enormous efforts and the wisdom of diplomats from both countries. The delegates decided that we should push forward the bilateral ties with the spirit of respecting history and facing the future."

Kono is leading a delegation of some 60 Japanese entrepreneurs and politicians here to China.

The former Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary is best known in China for the so-called "Kono Statement."

The statement, delivered in 1993, publically confirmed the Japanese Imperial Army forced foreign women to work in military-run brothels during the war.