Beijing - China on Tuesday praised the "great contribution" to improving bilateral relations by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who resigned on Monday.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Fukuda's resignation was an "internal affair of Japan" but said ties had improved significantly between the two nations during his 11 months in office.

"Recently, through the joint efforts of two governments and people from all circles, China-Japan relations have witnessed good development, with deepening strategic cooperative relations," Jiang told reporters.

"The prime minister (Fukuda) has made a great contribution to it," she said. "We think highly of him."

Ties between China and Japan began to thaw under Fukuda's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, and reached a high point last December when Fukuda visited Beijing.

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

Koizumi caused outrage in China and South Korea by making annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead, where war criminals convicted of atrocities in China are also remembered. (dpa)