In a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said the two countries agreed to promote “mutually beneficial and practical” cooperation. Cooperation will particularly focus on areas such as reducing carbon emissions and combating low birth rates, he said.
Speaking to the press after the meeting in Tokyo, Iwaya said he expressed concern about China’s increasing military activities. He also reiterated Japan’s willingness to host a trilateral summit including South Korea by the end of the year. During the meeting, Iwaya also reiterated China’s demand that Japan lift its general import ban on Japanese seafood following the dumping of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. The two countries agreed to “deepen” communication in this area by holding a security dialogue with the participation of senior officials as soon as possible. This was the first official visit by a Chinese foreign minister to Japan since November 2020. Wang Yi came to Japan that year to meet with Japanese political leaders during the pandemic. Speaking at the start of the economic talks, Iwaya said he hoped the meeting would concretize cooperation between the two countries and said he would strive to make the Japanese and Chinese peoples feel the benefits of this progress.
