Japan's government said today that it is preparing for the first meeting between the new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, and China's president, Xi Jinping, possibly later this week.
We are preparing to hold the meeting," Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said when asked at a press conference about a potential meeting.
"There are many possibilities between Japan and China, and at the same time, many problems and outstanding issues. Therefore, it is important to maintain high-level dialogues and communications, including with heads of state," Hayashi added.
According to government sources cited by the Japanese news agency Kyodo and the Nikkei business daily, Ishiba and Xi could meet as early as Friday.
The meeting could take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which has been taking place in Lima since Sunday and will be attended by the two leaders.
Hayashi indicated that both the APEC summit and the G20 summit, the group of the world's 20 largest economies, in Brazil next week, will be opportunities for a meeting.
On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that Xi Jinping will be in Lima from November 13 to 17 and Rio de Janeiro from November 17 to 21 to participate in both summits.
Hayashi said that the meeting with Xi would follow a meeting with the Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, which marked Ishiba's diplomatic debut.
The spokesman recalled that at their meeting in Laos in October, Ishiba and Li agreed that Japan and China "would continue to communicate at various levels".
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have deteriorated as a result of China's rapprochement with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and the intensification of Chinese military activities around the Japanese archipelago, often as part of joint manoeuvres with Moscow.
In August, Japan described the incursion of a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace near the Danjo Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture as a "serious violation of Japanese sovereignty".
Japan's lower house of the Diet (parliament) on Monday re-elected Shigeru Ishiba as prime minister by a simple majority after the ruling coalition lost its absolute majority in the last election.
Ishiba leads Japan's first minority government in about three decades.
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