Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda revealed on Wednesday that he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a his to Beijing last month and that they shared a "sense of crisis" over the strained ties between the two countries.
Publicly admitting his secret meeting with Xi for the first time, Fukuda said at a forum in Tokyo that they both "have the same sense of crisis" about bilateral ties soured by territorial and historical issues.
Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing center on the disputed ownership of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China as Diaoyu. The two countries also remain at odds over their differing perceptions of wartime history.