TOKYO (AFP) -- A top lawmaker from Japan's ruling party flew to Beijing Saturday where he was due to hold talks with Chinese leaders aimed at preventing stalled bilateral exchanges from drying up all together.

Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the Liberal Democratic Party's top policy making body, was to meet Legislative Chairman Wu Bangguo and other senior Chinese officials during his five-day stay in Beijing.

The two regional giants have seen relations trawling new depths recently amid rows over their wartime history and rival claims to energy resources.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japan's war dead have notably angered Beijing.

Japan and China held talks in Tokyo earlier this month in the first regular meeting between their vice-foreign ministers in four months but failed to find agreement on any differences straining their relations.

The Japanese side is reportedly seeking to resume contacts between Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao and reinstate foreign-minister-level talks.

But Beijing is strongly opposed to any top-level bilateral exchanges because of Koizumi's annual pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine seen as a symbol of Japan's militarist past.

Koizumi is due to step down in September after more than five years in office.