TOKYO (AFP) - Japan"s defense chief met a top Chinese military official, resuming defense dialogue after a three-year break amid regional concern over North Korea.

The talks are the latest bid by China and Japan to repair relations badly strained under Japan"s former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who stepped down in September.

Major General Zhang Qinsheng, assistant chief of general staff of the People"s Liberation Army, paid a courtesy call on Defense Agency Director-General Fumio Kyuma.

It was the first meeting between a top Chinese defense official and a Japanese defense chief since September 2003.

Zhang also held working-level talks with his counterpart Takemasa Moriya, a Japanese defense official said.

The two shared their concerns over North Korea"s missile and nuclear tests as a threat to the region, said the official, who attended the working-level meeting.

They also agreed to increase bilateral defense exchanges, to work toward building a Sino-Japan defense hotline and to achieve exchange visits by warships of the two nations, the official said.

"The meeting was honest, friendly and proactive in nature," Zhang said at the end of the talks, according to the Japanese official.

"It also looked to long-term issues and the meeting was strategic," Zhang said.

"After Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe took office in Japan, our relationship has improved," Zhang was quoted as saying.

Zhang, who arrived in Japan on Tuesday, will on Thursday visit a military school for cadets in Shizuoka prefecture west of Tokyo.

Military issues have been at the center of friction between the Asian powers.

Japan, along with the United States, has called for more transparency in China"s rapidly growing military spending and opposed proposals for European Union countries to sell weapons to Beijing.

China is considered the country with the most influence over North Korea, whose own military build-up has caused deep concern in Japan.

North Korea on October 9 tested its first nuclear bomb. In 1998, it fired a missile over Japan"s main island.

The Japan-China relations have begun to improve, following Abe"s visit to Beijing in October shortly after taking office in a bid to ease tension built up during Koizumi"s five-year tenure.

After the latest round of working-level talks, Japanese officials said they still hoped their Chinese counterparts would improve the transparency of Chinese defense spending.

"But we have seen progress forward," a Japanese official said.

Koizumi angered China and the two Koreas by going each year to Tokyo"s Yasukuni shrine, which honors war dead and war criminals from Japan"s militarist era.

"After the Japan-China summit in Beijing, many things have begun to move. It is most welcoming," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki.

"It is extremely important that Japan and China make exchanges at all levels to communicate with each other," he said.