China's top leaders officially agreed last year to prevent a military clash with Japan and any interference from the United States regarding the bitter sovereignty dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, sources close to them said Saturday.

This basic principle, endorsed late last year by the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of China's power structure, stands despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to war-related Yasukuni Shrine on Dec. 26, which further strained tensions with Beijing, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The seven-member standing committee, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, reached the consensus that the country has "no intention of fighting with Japan and Japan does not have the courage to fight with China," after convening a rare two-day meeting in late October in Beijing with Chinese ambassadors posted to about 30 neighboring countries, one of the sources said.