Photo/Illutration A photo posted on X (formerly twitter) by Japan’s prime minister Sanae Takaichi shows her exchange of greetings with China’s Xi Jinping at the APEC gathering in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Oct. 31, 2025.  

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Chinese President Xi Jinping said they wanted to build constructive and stable ties between the two countries in their first meeting on Friday.

“Japan and China share responsibilities for the peace and prosperity of the region,” Takaichi said at the start of the meeting on the sidelines of the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.

“While there are various pending issues and challenges between our countries, I hope we can reduce those and increase dialogue and cooperation,” she added.

Xi said he was ready to maintain communication with Takaichi to jointly advance China-Japan ties on the right track, Chinese state media reported.

Takaichi, a hardline conservative, became Japan’s first female premier last week, raising concerns that Tokyo’s relations with Beijing could deteriorate.

She is accelerating Japan’s biggest defense buildup since World War Two to deter China from using force to pursue its territorial ambitions in East Asia.

Before becoming prime minister, Takaichi was a regular visitor to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo that China regards as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.

She has also suggested that Japan could form a “quasi-security alliance” with Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by China, and said that any contingency there would constitute an emergency for Japan and its U.S. ally. China, which views the decades-old U.S.-Japan alliance as detrimental to its regional interests, has urged Takaichi to work toward improving ties between the two Asian neighbors.