Japan and China are arranging a meeting of senior foreign affairs officials in Tokyo this week with an eye to realizing talks between Prime Minister Shinzo
Japan and China are arranging a meeting of senior foreign affairs officials in Tokyo this week with an eye to realizing talks between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi Jinping in July, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
Behind the move is Tokyo’s desire to go hand-in-hand with Beijing in stopping North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, which it believes has reached “a new level of threat,” the sources said.
Kong Xuanyou, China’s assistant foreign minister who is considered a major candidate to be Beijing’s next ambassador to Japan, is expected to visit Tokyo and meet Takeo Akiba, deputy foreign minister for political affairs, they said.
The two sides will discuss how to steer strained bilateral relations and a possible meeting between Abe and Xi on the margins of a summit of Group of 20 major economies in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7-8.
Akiba and Kong are also likely to discuss when to convene a trilateral summit between Japan, China and South Korea, which Tokyo is scheduled to chair, and a possible visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
