THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
November 15, 2023 at 13:55 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida enters the prime minister’s office on Nov. 14. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will leave Japan on Nov. 15 to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco as Tokyo and Beijing are arranging for his first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a year.
“I would really like to create an opportunity for dialogue (with Xi),” Kishida told Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party's junior coalition partner, Komeito, during a meeting at the prime minister’s office on Nov. 14, sources said.
Japan-China relations have been strained by such issues as the release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and the detentions of Japanese nationals by Chinese authorities.
The focus of the meeting is expected to be on whether Kishida and Xi can move toward the “constructive and stable relationship” that the two leaders agreed to establish during their last meeting in Bangkok in November last year, sources said.
Kishida will be in San Francisco through Nov. 19 to attend the APEC summit.
The meeting between Kishida and Xi is being arranged on or around Nov. 16, sources said.
Takeo Akiba, who is in charge of foreign and security policies at the prime minister’s office as secretary-general of the National Security Secretariat, visited China on Nov. 9 and met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a Politburo member and the country’s top diplomat, for three and a half hours.
After Akiba returned, Kishida met with him every day over the last weekend apparently to make final arrangements for a meeting with Xi.
If a Japan-China summit is realized, Kishida is expected to call on Xi to immediately lift Beijing’s blanket ban on Japanese seafood exports imposed in August to protest the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima plant.
However, there have not been any signs of a resolution of the issue, according to a senior Foreign Ministry official.
(This article was written by Keishi Nishimura and Anri Takahashi.)
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