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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met for the first time yesterday (17th) to exchange opinions.
Both agreed on the need to improve relations, but they also fought nerves over security issues such as territorial disputes in the East China Sea.
Reporter Moon Jun-mo reports.
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Bangkok, Thailand where the APEC Summit was held.
The first meeting between the two leaders took place when Japanese Prime Minister Kishida visited the hotel where Chinese President Xi Jinping was staying.
The talks began with both expressing their willingness to normalize relations.
[Xi Jinping/President of China: There are many things the two countries need to cooperate with.
The importance of China-Japan relations has not changed and will not change in the future.]
[Kishida/Prime Minister of Japan: (Celebrating the 50th anniversary of normalization of relations), exchanges between the two countries are steadily recovering despite the influence of the corona.]
But let's move on to specific security issues. The mood has changed.
In particular, it is said that the two countries fought a war of nerves over the Senkaku Islands, the Chinese name Diaoyu Islands, and the East China Sea, where Taiwan is in dispute over territorial disputes.
Prime Minister Kishida expressed serious concern over China's military activities in the East China Sea, including ballistic missile launches, while stressing the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
In response, President Xi responded by
saying, "Issues of history and Taiwan and other major issues of principle are related to the basic trust between the two countries, and we must keep our promises and deal with them appropriately."
The
meeting lasted about 40 minutes
, and it was the first time in three years since Xi and former Prime Minister Abe met in Beijing in December 2019 that a China-Japan summit was held.