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China-Japan relations
ChinaDiplomacy

Japan open to dialogue with China after meetings axed in August

  • Japanese foreign minister says he is willing to meet Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of UN meetings later this month, but ‘nothing has been decided’
  • His comments come a month after Beijing scrapped talks with Tokyo following criticism of its response to Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip

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Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi was supposed to meet his Chinese counterpart last month, but Beijing abruptly cancelled the talks. Photo: EPA-EFE
Kyodo
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed his willingness on Friday to meet bilaterally with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the fringes of United Nations General Assembly meetings to be held late this month in New York.
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Hayashi said he is open to meeting Wang, who abruptly cancelled planned talks with him in early August in Phnom Penh following a trip to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But Hayashi said “nothing has been decided” with regard to a possible meeting with the Chinese foreign minister on the sidelines of the General Assembly, which will hold its annual general debate from September 21 to 27.

“I believe dialogues on various levels are important,” he said.

China has cited criticism levelled at it by the Group of Seven industrialised nations, including Japan, over Beijing’s response to Pelosi’s Taiwan visit as the reason for cancelling the Hayashi-Wang meeting in the Cambodian capital.

If the meeting is held, the ministers are expected to lay the groundwork for a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with Tokyo and Beijing marking the 50th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic ties.
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