Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has described as "extremely regrettable" Chinese President Xi Jinping's failure to refer to reconciliation with Japan during a speech on the sidelines of a military parade in Beijing on Thursday.

"We had requested that this (Thursday's) event (to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II) include elements of reconciliation between Japan and China, not a so-called anti-Japan feature," Suga said at a news conference on the same day.

Suga cited a history of friendship between the two countries since normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972 and two rounds of talks between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi in November last year and April this year.