Japan, at odds with China on territorial and other issues, took its case to Europe on Thursday, defending Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to a war shrine and reiterating its call for an emergency hotline between Tokyo and Beijing.
Ties between the two Asian economic giants, never warm, were further strained last month when Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals are enshrined with other war dead, angering China and South Korea.
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