China, Japan in close contact on Xi Jinping visit amid coronavirus concerns

Beijing and Tokyo say they are in close contact preparing for President Xi Jinping’s upcoming state visit to Japan, amid concerns it could be postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The visit comes as relations between the two Asian rivals are warming, but as the Chinese president faces a serious challenge at home as authorities scramble to contain the spread of the new virus.

The pneumonia-like illness has infected more than 24,000 people and killed over 490 since the outbreak began in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

Xi is expected to visit Tokyo in early April, with the trip to include a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an audience with Emperor Naruhito and a banquet at the Imperial Palace.

But the virus outbreak has raised questions over whether the trip would go ahead as planned, with Japanese news agency Kyodo reporting that it could be delayed.

A Japanese diplomatic source said preparations for the trip were under way and Tokyo was sticking with the original schedule.

“That’s not true,” the source said of the report. “So far we haven’t changed our policy.”

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga also said there would be no change to the schedule.

“At this moment, we intend to steadily advance preparations to realise a Japan visit [by Xi] as planned,” Suga said on Wednesday. “We do not expect that a postponement will be sought from the Japanese side.”

He also denied a claim in the Kyodo report that the two governments had pushed back a related meeting scheduled for later this month in Beijing, so that Chinese officials could focus on dealing with the virus outbreak.

“There are no cases of postponements, with no specific date set for such a meeting,” Suga said.

China has also said preparations for Xi’s visit were continuing, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying the two countries remained in “close communication”.

Hua on Tuesday said she was “deeply touched” by the support and sympathy shown by the Japanese government and its people since the outbreak.

That came after she hit out at another rival, the United States, saying its restrictions on travellers from China due to the coronavirus were “spreading fear” and that it had failed to provide any substantial help to contain it.

Hua softened her tone on Wednesday, saying China and the US had been in close communication on the outbreak. “We just learnt that some US companies and organisations have supported and provided assistance to China to fight the epidemic,” Hua said. “I just received the news that a batch of aid and prevention materials arrived in Wuhan on February 4.”

She said the US had sent health experts to be part of a team organised by China and the World Health Organisation to help tackle the crisis in the country.

US President Donald Trump also said his administration was “coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak” in his State of the Union address.

Officials from both China and Japan have said ties between the two nations – which have long-standing maritime and wartime historical disputes – had improved in recent months, with more frequent official visits, and Xi’s trip is seen as a way to build on that momentum.

Lian Degui, a China-Japan relations specialist at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said handling the coronavirus outbreak was a delicate balancing act for Abe.

“The Japanese government is faced with a dilemma – it cannot completely reject Chinese tourists and it needs to prevent an outbreak in Japan,” Lian said.

The outbreak would hurt tourism and trade, he said, but Xi’s visit would help to improve ties between the two countries.

Japan bans coronavirus-infected travellers after outcry over lax response

Japan has barred foreign nationals who have been to Hubei province within two weeks of their arrival in the country, and it also imposed an entry ban on anyone with a Chinese passport issued in Wuhan.

China is Japan’s second largest trading partner and Chinese tourists have been a key source of income for the country’s tourism industry. Japan received about 9.6 million visitors from China last year, and they accounted for a third of foreign tourist expenditure in the country.

Abe has said he had instructed his ministers to come up with additional steps to respond to the virus outbreak.