Reuters, Beijing :
China’s top diplomat will visit Japan this week for high-level political talks, the foreign ministry said on Monday, amid reports that China has detained two more Japanese nationals for spying.
State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister, will be in Tokyo on Tuesday and Wednesday and will meet the head of Japan’s National Security Council, Shotaro Yachi, a close ally of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the two sides would talk about bilateral and international issues and ways to “manage and control disputes”, though was not able to immediately say if Yang would meet Abe.
China and Japan have close economic and cultural ties, but have long bickered over their painful wartime history, and have an increasingly bitter argument over ownership of a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.
Last month China said that it had arrested two Japanese for spying.
China’s top diplomat will visit Japan this week for high-level political talks, the foreign ministry said on Monday, amid reports that China has detained two more Japanese nationals for spying.
State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister, will be in Tokyo on Tuesday and Wednesday and will meet the head of Japan’s National Security Council, Shotaro Yachi, a close ally of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the two sides would talk about bilateral and international issues and ways to “manage and control disputes”, though was not able to immediately say if Yang would meet Abe.
China and Japan have close economic and cultural ties, but have long bickered over their painful wartime history, and have an increasingly bitter argument over ownership of a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.
Last month China said that it had arrested two Japanese for spying.
