Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused Japan of "double dealing," as tensions linger between Asia's two biggest economies over disputed islands and Japanese officials join international criticism of China's efforts to build artificial islands in disputed waters.

Wang's comments to reporters in Beijing on Tuesday come weeks before a nuclear summit in Washington, where Japan had hoped to arrange a meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi Jinping. While Abe succeeded in breaking a summit hiatus by sitting down with Xi in November 2014 and April 2015, there has been no such meeting in almost a year.

Territorial disputes and Japan's wartime legacy have been at the center of strained relations, which have marginally improved since a low in 2012 when the Japanese government bought three of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from a private owner.