MUNICH: Chinese and Japanese officials will hold senior-level security talks next week for the first time since February 2019, Japan’s top diplomat said Saturday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi held a meeting for nearly an hour on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Japan’s Foreign Minister’s office said in a statement.
The statement said the two foreign ministers discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major subject for this year’s Munich conference, which is being held days before the anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Hayashi “asked China to respond to the Ukraine situation as a responsible major power.”
He also denounced North Korea’s latest missile launch on Saturday while urging China “to make positive contributions to the world community under established international rules”.
China, Japan security, diplomaticc talks next week
The two foreign ministers agreed to hold security and diplomatic discussions next week, Hayashi’s office said, without mentioning the place of the meeting.
The last such level meeting took place in November 2019 in Beijing.
China and Japan have been at loggerheads for years over the independence of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which Japan administers as the Senkakus but which China claims as the Diaoyus.
Relations turned tense between the two major Asian powers in 2012 when Japan’s government angered China by nationalizing some of the islands.
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“Foreign Minister Hayashi again expressed serious concerns over the East China Sea, including the situation surrounding the Senkaku Islands, and China’s increasingly active military activities near Japan, including its cooperation with Russia,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
