Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's landmark visit to Japan shows the Asian powers are looking pragmatically at the benefits of better ties even though they remain divided on a host of issues, analysts said Friday. With intense personal diplomacy and grand public statements, Wen vowed to "melt the ice" between the two nations which just months ago were barely speaking to each other. "The visit indicated that China and Japan are now trying to seek practical benefits, putting aside points of confrontation," said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, professor of politics at Aoyama University in Tokyo.

"Prime Minister Wen was in a surprisingly friendly mood and made positive impressions during the trip," he said. "In that sense, Prime Minister Wen has achieved his initial goal." A confident Wen told reporters Friday: "A lot of Japanese people say we have succeeded in melting the ice." But neither side appears to have budged on the hard issues. In the midst of Wen's three-day visit, China reiterated it would not budge on its territorial claims to lucrative gas reserves in the East China Sea.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in turn has kept strategically silent on whether he will visit the Yasukuni shrine to war dead, which China considers a symbol of Japan's past aggression. "If Abe visits Yasukuni, everything the two countries have built will be wiped out easily," said Yamamoto. China shunned summits with Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, citing his pilgrimages to the Shinto shrine. "Ice can't melt immediately, but this visit raises the temperature of the mutual relationship. This will help ties improve," said Huang Dahui, director of the Centre of East Asia Studies at the Renmin University of China.

On Thursday, making his first address to the Japanese parliament by a Chinese leader in 22 years, Wen called for the two nations to work together and acknowledged that Japanese also suffered during World War II. Even amid soaring tensions, trade has steadily grown between Japan and China, with Japanese firms relying on the giant neighbour as a source of abundant labour and consumers. Abe, despite a record as a hardliner on history issues, went to China days after succeeding Koizumi in September in a bid to repair ties.

For Abe, winning over China and South Korea is also crucial to his conservative goals - namely rewriting the US-imposed post-World War II pacifist constitution. He already pushed through reforms giving Japan a full-fledged defence ministry, breaking another post-war taboo, without any significant criticism overseas. When one left-wing lawmaker opposed to rewriting the constitution brought up the issue with Wen, he was quoted as replying only, "The most important thing for Japan is to go along the way of peaceful development."

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