Wang Yi’s talks with Japanese official suggest meeting between Xi and Ishiba lies ahead

China and Japan have agreed to maintain dialogues between their national leaders after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Japanese top security official Takeo Akiba in Beijing on Monday.

The two sides will also maintain dialogue and exchanges at other levels and areas and “release more positive signals” to the outside world, according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout after the meeting.

Akiba’s trip was believed to lay the groundwork for the first summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, later this month, Japanese media reported.

Wang told Akiba that Japan must honour its pledge to Beijing concerning Taiwan and resist external “instigations” – especially because the China-Japan relationship was at “a critical stage of improvement and development”.

“Japan should establish an objective and rational understanding of China, abide by its political commitment on the Taiwan question, earnestly safeguard the political foundation of China-Japan relations, and take concrete actions to implement the important consensus of ‘being each other’s cooperative partners rather than threats’,” Wang was quoted as saying.

Wang was referring to the one-China policy, which asserts that Taiwan is a part of China and Beijing is the sole legitimate government of China. Beijing sees accepting or at least acknowledging this position by a foreign government as a fundamental precondition for the establishment of diplomatic relations.