SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 29 March 2024, Friday |

Japan’s PM Kishida to meet China’s Xi on Thursday

Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday for talks as tensions in Asia have increased over Taiwan and North Korea, according to Japan’s top government spokesperson.

Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, stated during a regular news conference on Monday that “it is vital to create constructive and stable Japan-China relations via the efforts of both Japan and China.”

“We would like to hold a meeting to move forward” with bilateral relations.

Both leaders are in Indonesia for a Group of 20 summit on Tuesday and both will then travel to Thailand for an APEC summit later in the week, where they are due to meet, the Japanese government spokesman said.

Sino-Japanese ties have long been plagued by a dispute over a group of tiny uninhabited East China Sea islets, a legacy of Japan’s World War Two aggression and regional rivalry.

 

This year, their relations were strained further after China fired ballistic missiles into waters near Japan following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.

Japan and its main ally the United States condemned China’s actions.

Japan identified China as its chief adversary in its 2019 defence white paper, worried that Beijing’s flouting of international norms, pressure on Taiwan and rapid military modernisation posed a serious security threat. That anxiety has intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine, security experts say.

The last in-person between the leaders of the Asian neighbours was in December 2019, when Xi met with then-premier Shinzo Abe in Beijing. Xi was set to visit Japan in 2020 as a state guest, but the trip was postponed because of COVID-19.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of normalisation between the two countries.

    Source:
  • Reuters