Tokyo seeking summit with Beijing, signaling possible US visit by Chinese leader

ISTANBUL

Tokyo and Beijing are in the midst of "arranging talks" next week between Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and China's President Xi Jinping, according to Japanese media on Thursday.

The sides are working to set a meeting on around Nov. 16, Kyodo News, citing unnamed sources, said, in what could mean the Chinese leader will be traveling to US city of San Francisco for a three-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

China on Wednesday acknowledged that it was working with the US on a possible leader-level meeting with President Joe Biden, without mentioning the Nov. 15-17 APEC event. However, it also added that the "path towards the summit won't be plain sailing."

If Xi flies to the APEC summit, it would be his first trip to the US since 2015.

Tokyo wants to resume high-level contacts with Beijing as bilateral relations after years of rocky relations.

Takeo Akiba, Japan's top national security advisor, has reached Beijing and is expected to holds talks with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi about the possible meeting.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, said Beijing hoped that Tokyo could live up to its "commitment of building a constructive and stable China-Japan relationship through concrete actions, in a bid to create the necessary, positive environment for the improvement and development of bilateral relations and high-level exchanges between the two countries."

According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Tokyo is eyeing a Xi-Kishida summit next week on Thursday "as a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Xi is planned to be held the day before."

Beijing, Washington, and Tokyo are yet to make an official statement on Xi's possible trip to the US, which could be first in his unprecedented third term as Chinese president.

Ahead of APEC, the Human Rights Watch called on participating leaders to confront Xi "about his government's intensifying assault on human rights" in Xinjiang and Tibet. Beijing has rejected such accusations as politically motivated.