US offers its cold war hotline experience to China, Japan in setting up communication mechanism

US defence officials offered their experience to China and Japan in setting up a communication mechanism to avoid accidental clashes involving territorial disputes, according to a former adviser to the government in Tokyo.

Naoyuki Agawa, a professor at Keio University who previously served in the Japanese embassy in Washington, said Pentagon officials had suggested such a mechanism could be useful for China and Japan, given Beijing's declaration of an air defence identification zone over the East China Sea in late 2013.

"American officials are worried about accidental confrontations between China and Japan," Agawa said.

"Some of the people I have talked to privately indicated that was how the Soviet Union and the US worked together when they were at the height of the cold war.

"What I heard them saying was that: do you have that kind of mechanism between China and Japan? If not, we have experience and that could be useful."

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Japan and China agreed late on Sunday they would aim to resume talks on the exploration of natural resources in the East China Sea, and would work towards setting up a maritime and air communication mechanism to prevent conflict.