Japan envoy says new PM wants to improve China ties

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Japanese envoy carrying a letter from new prime minister Shinzo Abe told his Chinese hosts on Wednesday that Japan wants to improve bilateral ties, strained by a dispute over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

A spokesman for Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of New Komeito, the junior partner in Japan's ruling coalition, would not disclose the letter's contents nor say explicitly who it was for.