Despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first face-to-face encounters with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts amid fraught bilateral ties, full rapprochement with the two neighboring countries is still a long way off.
In Russia for a Group of 20 summit, Abe chatted briefly with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday for the first time since he took office in December. The five-minute meetings took place on the sidelines of the G-20 gathering that ended Friday in St. Petersburg.
Beijing is still refusing to hold a formal bilateral summit, enraged by the dismissal of Chinese claims to the Senkaku Islands. China says the islets, which it calls Diaoyu, are an inherent part of its territory. Beijing has repeatedly said it will not hold formal high-level talks unless Japan first budges from its official position that no dispute exists over the ownership of the Senkakus in the East China Sea.