Japan and China have wasted no time in implementing the agreements reached during Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya’s Dec. 25 visit to Beijing, a report published today by Japan’s leading news agency, Kyodo News, makes clear. Iwaya and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had agreed in Beijing that Wang would visit Japan “at the earliest appropriate timing next year. Kyodo News, citing unnamed Japanese diplomatic sources, reports that both governments are now looking at the possibility of Wang visiting as soon as February.
It would be Wang’s first visit to Japan since 2020. He would meet Iwaya and also Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whom he is “expected to … invite to make the first China visit by a leader of Japan since 2019, when then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went to Beijing and Chengdu,” according to Kyodo News. A first high-level economic dialogue since 2019 is also likely at the time, with the possibility that China’s Commerce Minister would also attend.
