BEIJING (AP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an ice-breaking meeting Monday on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific conference in Beijing, following more than two years of deep tensions over an island dispute.
The spat between China and Japan over uninhabited East China Sea islands raised concerns of a military confrontation between Asia’s two largest economics. China also has been angry over what it sees as effort by Japan to play down its brutal 20th century invasion and occupation of China.
The meeting between Xi and Abe in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People gives rise to hopes the countries will dial down the tensions. The two met ahead of Tuesday’s summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
The two sides had issued a joint statement on Friday agreeing to gradually resume political, diplomatic and security dialogues.
In that statement, Japan said it acknowledged differing views over the status of the islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japan. China has long demanded that Tokyo acknowledge that the islands’ sovereignty is in dispute, something Japan has refused to do.