Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao in March on a trip to China, Japanese and Chinese government sources said Friday.
The sources said the Chinese government had conveyed its decision to the Japanese side to set up a meeting between its top leader and the former prime minister.
It will be the first time for Hu to meet a Japanese leader since he met Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), Japan's largest business lobby, last September.
China has repeatedly refused meetings with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is currently in Beijing's bad books for making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals as well as the war dead. Beijing appears to be concerned about the strained Sino-Japanese relations.
Hashimoto visited China twice last year and has maintained close relations with its leaders.
After becoming the prime minister, Hashimoto went to Yasukuni in 1996, but did not visit the shrine for his remaining years in office.