Beijing ? Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will fly to Japan this week to mend relations between neighbors tightly linked by trade but torn by years of warfare and squabbling.

On the first such visit by a Chinese premier since 2000, Wen will make a rare speech to Japan’s Parliament, confer with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meet Emperor Akihito and seek to assuage widespread concerns among Japanese that China’s rise threatens the region.

Tensions have subsided markedly between the neighbors since Abe came to office in September, replacing Junichiro Koizumi, whose regular visits to Yasukuni, a sanctuary in Tokyo where more than a dozen major World War II war criminals are enshrined, enraged China. Abe hasn’t visited the shrine while in office.

In a sign of the unfolding rapprochement, China responded with restraint to Abe’s denials in early March that Japan’s military had forced Asian “comfort women” into sex slavery in military brothels during World War II, a lightning-rod issue elsewhere in East Asia.