Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping are to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which will start next Wednesday in San Francisco. This would mark their first one-on-one meeting since November 2022.
Kishida on Thursday sent national security adviser Takeo Akiba to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing to lay the groundwork.
"We hope Japan will honor its statement about seeking constructive and stable relations with China and create the environment and atmosphere needed for bilateral ties to improve and grow and for the two countries to engage in high-level exchanges," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a news conference Thursday.
In his meeting with Xi, Kishida is expected to stress the importance of continued dialogue toward resolving bilateral disagreements. Relations between their countries have suffered recently over the release of treated radioactive wastewater from Japan's disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and China's subsequent import curbs on Japanese seafood, as well as the October arrest of a Japanese executive at drugmaker Astellas Pharma in China.
Chinese coast guard vessels have also repeatedly entered Japanese territorial waters by the Senkaku Islands, a Japanese-administered chain claimed by China as the Diaoyu. The leaders could affirm the importance of dialogue to prevent accidental clashes in the East China Sea.
Kishida is expected to urge stability in ties and cooperation on shared challenges, such as climate change.
The push for a summit comes as China boosts engagement with major economies, hoping to attract more foreign investment amid a downturn in the property sector and other economic woes. In a written message to a recent event in Shanghai, Xi called for greater efforts to open up the enormous Chinese market to the world.
China and the U.S. have agreed to have their presidents meet at APEC, following up on Wang Yi's late-October visit to Washington. Xi on Monday met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the first Australian leader to visit China in seven years, amid a thaw in economic and security ties.
Some in China are now calling for greater dialogue with Japan as well, with an eye on increasing trade and investment ties with the neighboring country.
Meanwhile, Japan sees dialogue with China as key to a more stable security environment. Communication at the highest level is considered critical to preventing accidental clashes near the Senkakus and elsewhere.
Japan also worries that the U.S., its sole treaty ally, could scale back its involvement in the Indo-Pacific in light of the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
Kishida has said he will stand his ground on key issues and urge China to fulfill its responsibilities as a major power. At the upcoming meeting with Xi, Kishida is expected to call for China to quickly lift the seafood import curbs and to release the Astellas executive.