Taku Yamasaki, special adviser to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, will visit China in mid-November to help bring about a meeting between Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao later in the month, according to political sources.
Arrangements are under way for Yamasaki, a former vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to meet with senior Chinese officials to work on a Koizumi-Hu meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Chile in late November, the sources said.
Neither Hu nor Premier Wen Jiabao have met with Koizumi this year. The failure to arrange meetings is widely seen as reflecting Beijing's anger over Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A World War II criminals among the country's war dead.
Koizumi last visited the Shinto shrine Jan. 1.