Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on Friday for a leaders’ summit or a foreign ministers’ meeting between his country and China as soon as possible, drawing a cool reaction from Beijing which accused Japan of lacking sincerity.
Sino-Japanese ties, often fragile, have been seriously strained since September when a territorial row over tiny islands in the East China Sea flared. Concerns that the conservative Japanese leader wants to recast Japan’s wartime history with a less apologetic tone have added to the tensions.
“I think there should be a summit meeting and also a foreign ministers meeting as soon as possible ... I think such meetings should be held without pre-conditions,” Abe said in response to a question at an academic conference in Singapore, the second stop on a trip that includes Malaysia and the Philippines.
China’s Foreign Ministry said its door was always open for talks, but that the problem lay in Japan’s attitude.
“The crux of the matter at present is Japan’s unwillingness to face up to the serious problems which exist in Sino-Japan relations and it is avoiding having earnest talks and consultations with China,” the ministry said in a faxed statement to Reuters.
Japan, it said, should “stop using empty slogans about so-called dialogue to gloss over disagreements”.