Japan and China are finding it almost impossible to hold a meeting of their finance, foreign and other key ministers by year's end as they agreed to do last year, diplomats with knowledge of the situation said Friday.
The difficulty mainly stems from China's reluctance to adjust its ministers' schedules for the meeting in Japan, which the diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said was further evidence that bilateral ties are stalled.
A year ago, in their first one-on-one talks, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang agreed to resume high-level economic dialogues at an early date in 2016.