China, Japan 'preparing ground for top leaders to meet'

China and Japan are paving the way for their leaders to meet at a regional summit in Beijing this autumn after a series of lower-level exchanges between the countries over the past few months, according to political analysts.

The assessment came after Masahiko Komura, a former Japanese foreign minister and vice-president of Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party, wrapped up a three-day trip to Beijing on Monday. He held talks with Zhang Dejiang, the third-ranking member of the Communist Party.

Relations between China and Japan have been badly strained by a territorial dispute concerning the sovereignty of several islets in the East China Sea and Beijing's outrage at Tokyo's apparent whitewashing of its wartime past.

Komura told Zhang that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was ready to hold a formal meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum meeting in the Chinese capital.

Komura told reporters after the meeting that Zhang said he would convey the message to Xi.

With bilateral relations at their most fraught in decades, recent Japanese delegations to Beijing were only given an audience with Vice-Premier Wang Yang . The arrangement for Komura to meet Zhang signals that both sides want to ease tensions, according to analysts.