China and Japan have agreed to try to reduce tensions over islands in the East China Sea. Beijing also announced that a joint mechanism had been set up to prevent the escalation of the dispute. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe noted that conditions had been created for his initial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
According to information on the BBC’s website, the summit is planned on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which will take place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing.
“Both Japan and China have come to the conclusion that the summit will be beneficial not only for the two countries, but also for the stability of the entire region,” said the Japanese prime minister.
Longstanding dispute
The uninhabited islands, which are controlled by Japan and are called the Senkaku, while Beijing calls them Tiao-yü, have been the subject of a long-running dispute.
The two countries recently sent planes and patrol boats to the region, raising fears that the dispute could escalate into a military clash between the world’s second and third largest economies.
In addition, relations between China and Japan were clouded by the visit of Japanese politicians to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which the Chinese and Koreans in particular regard as a symbol of Japan’s former militarism. Among the 2.5 million Japanese soldiers who died, 14 convicted war criminals are also honored here.
Japan, which was an ally of Nazi Germany during World War II, occupied parts of China from 1931-1945, and the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony from 1910-1945.
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