No areas will be off limits in talks next week when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Japan, but North Korea is not going to be a focus, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday. China and Japan, Asia’s two largest economies, have been trying to reset ties after years
No areas will be off limits in talks next week when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Japan, but North Korea is not going to be a focus, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday.
China and Japan, Asia’s two largest economies, have been trying to reset ties after years of increasingly bitter disputes over a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea and the legacy of Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War Two.
Japan will host a summit with Li and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in in Tokyo on Wednesday to discuss regional issues, where North Korea had been expected to be high on the agenda.
The meeting, which has been hosted in turn by each of the three nations since the first held in Japan in 2008, aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said Li’s trip to Japan, the first by a Chinese premier in eight years, represented a “rare development opportunity”, though he admitted challenges remain.
“There will be no off-limits areas,” Kong told reporters, referring to the talks between Li and Abe.
