With intense personal diplomacy and grand public statements, Wen vowed to “melt the ice” between the two nations which just months ago were barely speaking to each other.

“The visit indicated that China and Japan are now trying to seek practical benefits, putting aside points of confrontation,” said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, professor of politics at Aoyama University in Tokyo.

“Prime Minister Wen was in a surprisingly friendly mood and made positive impressions during the trip,” he said. “In that sense, Prime Minister Wen has achieved his initial goal.”

A confident Wen told reporters Friday: “A lot of Japanese people say we have succeeded in melting the ice.”

But neither side appears to have budged on the hard issues. In the midst of Wen’s three-day visit, China reiterated it would not budge on its territorial claims to lucrative gas reserves in the East China Sea.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in turn has kept strategically silent on whether he will visit the Yasukuni shrine to war dead, which China considers a symbol of Japan’s past aggression.

“If Abe visits Yasukuni, everything the two countries have built will be wiped out easily,” said Yamamoto.

China shunned summits with Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, citing his pilgrimages to the Shinto shrine.

“Ice can’t melt immediately, but this visit raises the temperature of the mutual relationship. This will help ties improve,” said Huang Dahui, director of the Center of East Asia Studies at the Renmin University of China.

On Thursday, making his first address to the Japanese parliament by a Chinese leader in 22 years, Wen called for the two nations to work together and acknowledged that Japanese also suffered during World War II.

Even amid soaring tensions, trade has steadily grown between Japan and China, with Japanese firms relying on the giant neighbor as a source of abundant labor and consumers.

Abe, despite a record as a hardliner on history issues, went to China days after succeeding Koizumi in September in a bid to repair ties.

For Abe, winning over China and South Korea is also crucial to his conservative goals — namely rewriting the U.S. imposed post-World War II pacifist constitution.

He already pushed through reforms giving Japan a full-fledged defense ministry, breaking another post-war taboo, without any significant criticism overseas.

When one left-wing lawmaker opposed to rewriting the constitution brought up the issue with Wen, he was quoted as replying only, “The most important thing for Japan is to go along the way of peaceful development.”

During his trip, Wen did not make any direct mention of either the Yasukuni shrine or Abe’s recent controversial remarks about World War II sex slaves.

“China believes the history issue is the most important issue to China-Japan relations, this has not changed,” said Jin Linbo, researcher with the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing.

But Jin said Wen hoped to “consolidate and improve the political atmosphere between the two countries.”

“The political issue affects economic relations,” said fellow analyst Huang. “Since Abe became prime minister, the relationship between China and Japan has improved, so the trade ties have improved as well.”

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