BEIJING -- Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi arrived in China on Sunday for talks on bilateral ties and plans to mark the 30th anniversary of normalization of relations this year, a Japanese Embassy official said.

Kawaguchi's three-day trip could pave the way for a visit later this year by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, informally invited for autumn, despite having angered Beijing by paying homage at a shrine that honors Japan's war dead, some war criminals among them, Reuters reported.

"She has arrived. They will talk about relations in the remaining months of the year," said the embassy official, who declined to be named.

China's Foreign Ministry was hopeful the talks would highlight the positive parts of the Asian neighbors' often turbulent past.

"Sino-Japanese relations have made significant progress in the past 30 years. Exchanges and cooperation are fruitful in all aspects," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference on Thursday.

"I believe the two foreign ministers will look back at the progress made in all fields and discuss their relationship in the future deeply," he said.

Ties between the two countries have been dogged by their World War II past, when Japanese troops brutally occupied parts of China, but they normalized relations in 1972.

Chinese and Japanese experts teamed up last week to start removing chemical weapons abandoned after Japan's 13-year occupation of northern China and buried in 1953 by Chinese authorities.

But relations have also been strained by fears in Tokyo of China as an emerging regional rival. Last year, trade between the two hit nearly $88 billion.

Now it appears a trade row threatens over spinach, with China complaining on Friday that Japan's stringent new inspections of frozen spinach imports were discriminatory and "seriously impairing" trade ties.

The two have met several times but have proved unable to resolve the spinach issue in their efforts to avert a sequel to a row last year over Japanese curbs on Chinese imports of mushrooms, leeks and straw for tatami mats.

Koizumi outraged China with visits in August 2001 and again last April to the Yasukuni shrine, where convicted war criminals are enshrined along with other war dead.

CAPTION Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi is greetd by Chinese Foreign Minioster Tang Jiaxuan at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002.