Lawmakers from the ruling parties of Japan and China met on Monday in a bid to improve sour bilateral ties, with the North Korean nuclear crisis expected to be on the agenda.
Representatives of the Chinese Communist Party flew to Tokyo to hold the talks with Japan's Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner New Komeito.
"We have succeeded in entering a new era of our relationship," said Hidenao Nakagawa, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955.
The meeting followed a visit on October 8 to China by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is president of the Liberal Democratic Party.
That trip was overshadowed by concerns about North Korea, which a day later said it had tested its first atom bomb.
Abe was the first Japanese premier to visit China in five years.
China refused to invite Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi because of his repeated visits to a controversial shrine that honours war dead and war criminals alike.
China and South Korea see the Yasukuni shrine as a symbol of Japan's past aggression in Asia.
Abe has so far taken a conciliatory stance with China, despite his reputation as a hardliner.
The Chinese and Japanese ruling party lawmakers held their first gathering in February in Beijing.