Japan, China eyeing Kishida-Xi meet in mid-November: Sankei

THE Japanese and Chinese governments have started planning a meeting between Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and China’s President Xi Jinping for mid-November, the Sankei newspaper reported on Friday.

The governments were arranging the meeting to be held alongside an international conference set to take place in South-east Asia around that time, the Sankei said, citing multiple government sources.

An official at Japan’s foreign ministry wasn’t immediately available to comment on the report.

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

Tokyo and Beijing were looking to arrange a summit meeting on the sidelines of a G20 meeting to be held in Indonesia on Nov 15-16, or at a meeting between leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) countries on Nov 18-19 in Bangkok, Thailand, Sankei said. REUTERS