Japan and China, two of the world's largest energy importers, have failed in 11 rounds of talks since 2004 to reach any breakthrough on sharing lucrative gas resources in the East China Sea.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda showed no concrete achievements on the row when he visited China last month, although he said there was progress in his talks with Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao.

"Hopefully we'll arrive at a solution well before President Hu's visit," Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai told reporters in Tokyo. "I do hope so."

He added: "I know this is a difficult issue, a sensitive issue, but fortunately the two sides have both displayed the real earnestness and the political wills to resolve this issue as soon as possible."

Hu is due to visit Japan in the spring, in only the second visit by a Chinese head of state to Tokyo and the first such trip in a decade. The exact date has not been set.

Relations between the two countries remain uneasy over their wartime history. China refused all high-level contact with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi due to his visits to a shrine venerating Japanese war dead, including war criminals.

Tensions have also been high over the gas dispute, with Tokyo voicing fears that China may be siphoning off what it considers its own gas reserves.

China started test-drilling in the area in 2003 and rejects the border, which Japan considers a starting point for discussions.

But Cui said "what we are working on now is not talking about territories" but "some problems regarding chances of developing the resources".

"That is a very practical and very pragmatic approach," he said.

"We are making progress, so hopefully maybe in a short period of time the two governments could reach agreement on a particular formula for joint development," he said.

Japan and China, however, already missed a goal of sorting out the dispute before Fukuda's visit to Beijing last month.

A senior Japanese official also voiced hope for progress.

"We would like to resolve the issue, if possible without waiting for President Hu's visit in Japan," said Mitoji Yabunaka, the newly appointed deputy vice foreign minister.

"We are in the middle of in-depth negotiations, and our mutual understanding has been deepening," Yabunaka said in an interview with the Nikkei business daily.

Relations began to improve in 2006 when Shinzo Abe replaced Koizumi as premier and put an emphasis on reaching out to China in his one-year tenure.

In a sign that China hopes to keep stable relations, the ambassador played down a reported complaint from Tokyo over a museum on Japanese troops' 1937 massacre of Nanjing.

Japanese news reports said the Japanese consul general in Shanghai, Yuji Kumamaru, voiced concern that the museum stated unequivocally that 300,000 people were killed.

"What's most important is that the massacre did take place. That's quite sure," Cui said.

"So I don't think it's quite useful and productive to spend so much time in debating" the number of victims, he added.

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