Beijing  - China's Hu Jintao is due next week to make the first visit by a Chinese president to Japan in 10 years.

The four-day visit, which begins on Tuesday, is intended to "enhance political mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told the press in Beijing on Tuesday.

On the "sensitive subject" of oil and gas rights in the East China Sea, both sides would negotiate further and seek an acceptable solution, she said.

Hu said during a meeting with former Japanese prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in Beijing that he was satisfied about the development of ties, "which continue to improve," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cooperation between the two countries was displaying remarkable successes, Hu said.

Bilateral ties reached an all-time low under former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who left office in 2006.

Koizumi caused outrage in China with his annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead, where war criminals indicted of atrocities in China are also interred.

The Chinese government accused Koizumi of not dealing adequately with Japan's war past.

The shrine visits led to anti-Japanese protests in several Chinese cities.

Ties frozen at the time have warmed significantly and reached a high point in December when the new, more China-friendly Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visited Beijing. (dpa)