Tokyo : Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda aims to improve ties strained by wartime memories during a trip to China beginning on Thursday, but there are few signs disputes over energy, territory and military buildups will be settled anytime soon.

Instead, the Asian rivals are expected to focus on economic and environmental cooperation, including transfers of Japan's waste-cutting, energy-saving and low-pollution technology, during Fukuda's four-day trip. "I want to do everything in my power to build a good relationship," Fukuda told reporters just before leaving his official residence.

Relations between the two countries have already warmed somewhat in the past year after a long chill under former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who repeatedly visited Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Now Fukuda, whose father clinched a milestone peace and friendship treaty with Beijing as prime minister in 1978, wants to find ways to further develop "mutually beneficial strategic relations", the new code phrase for improving ties. "The trip will pave the way for the two powers to build robust friendly ties, reversing the confrontational tone created and nurtured since the time of the Koizumi government," said Terumasa Nakanishi, a professor of international politics at Kyoto University.

Fukuda, 71, has ruled out a pilgrimage to Yasukuni while in office. "So that removes a major barrier for the Chinese leadership when they engage the Japanese leaders in front of the Chinese domestic, populist anti-Japanese sentiment that is always boiling at the grassroots level," said Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Fukuda is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, parliament chief Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday. "China sees the trip by Fukuda, a dovish and pro-China politician, as a rare and golden chance to draw Japan closer," Nakanishi said.