The eldest son of the late reform-minded Chinese leader Hu Yaobang arrived in Japan on Sunday for consultations with former Japanese leaders, a source familiar with Japan-China relations said Monday.

Hu Deping, a 71-year-old former member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, will meet with former Prime Ministers Yasuo Fukuda and Yukio Hatoyama in the hopes of finding a way to smooth over recent frictions between Tokyo and Beijing.

Hu, who is known to have close ties with President Xi Jinping, will "try to see whether it's possible to improve Japan and China's chilly relationship and then share his observations with the Chinese leadership," a source on the Japanese side said.