China says Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Beijing this month
Two sides will discuss cooperation in third-party country during first visit to China by a Japanese leader in seven years
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will this month make the first visit to China by a Japanese leader in seven years, Beijing said on Friday, in a sign of the two countries efforts to improve relations amid rising global uncertainty.
Abe, who was re-elected leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month, will visit from October 25 to 27, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.
The visit would “elevate our bilateral ties and put bilateral cooperation back on the right track”, he told a regular press briefing.
The two sides would work to “jointly uphold multilateralism and the free-trade system”, Lu said, adding that Beijing welcomed investment from Japanese companies to “expand cooperation in arenas including trade, investment, finance, innovation and hi-tech”.
As part of their efforts to explore common ground, Beijing and Tokyo are currently in negotiations regarding cooperation in a third-party country under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious infrastructure and investment programme, and Tokyo’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, a similar strategy by which Japan is seeking enhanced connectivity between Asia and Africa.
Lu said a forum on public-private cooperation in a third country would be held during Abe’s visit to Beijing.