Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first in-person talks on Friday — part of an effort to reassure each other through high-level dialogue as relations remain tense over a ban on Japanese seafood exports, China’s military moves near Japan and the safety of Japanese nationals in China.
With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to return to the White House after his stunning election victory earlier this month, both Beijing and Tokyo seem to be carefully evaluating what it could mean for the power balance in the Indo-Pacific region, as they seek to keep communications open to avoid miscalculations.
During the meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, the two leaders reaffirmed their aims to develop a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests” — phrasing that had been rarely brought up in recent years due to rising diplomatic issues.