China, Japan leaders hold first talks

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held formal one-on-one talks on Monday for the first time since the two leaders took office, a breakthrough that suggests a possible willingness to end a dispute over history and territory.

China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, are at odds over a tiny group of uninhabited islets (called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China) in the East China Sea, regional influence and the bitter legacy of Japan's wartime occupation of China.

The two leaders met on the sidelines before the official opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and their face-to-face talks came after more than a year of confrontation.

Xi has been pushing his military might not only in the East China Sea against Japan but also in the South China Sea against the Philippines and Vietnam, against the Indian frontier and the Tibetan and Uighur peoples. Abe has routinely pushed back against China, dispatching coast guard vessels and warplanes to the Senkakus as well as to the Philippines to bolster Manila’s cash-strapped struggle against Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea.

For both leaders, the strategy plays well to the voters; Japanese and Chinese citizens view each other unfavorably.

Beijing has been particularly angered by visits of Japanese government ministers, including Abe, to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which China sees as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism and occupation of Chinese territory before and during World War II.

Yasukuni honors millions of Japanese war dead, including wartime leaders convicted of war crimes by an Allied tribunal.

The meeting between Abe and Xi, which took place in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, came three days after the two countries agreed to work on improving ties and signaled willingness to put their rival claims over the islands on the back burner.

Rebuilding trust between the longtime rivals will not be simple. In signs that fundamental problems would not be resolved easily, Abe has said that there has been no change in Japan’s stance on the isles at the heart of the territorial dispute, and China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, urged Japan to properly address sensitive issues like history and the islands.

China has sought assurances that Abe would not repeat his December 2013 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, but a promise would present a knotty political problem for Abe, who said Friday that the agreement did not cover specific issues such as his shrine visits.

Al Jazeera and wire services

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