China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday said he had "not heard" that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would visit China in September, state television reported, dismissing speculation of a summit meeting of the two leaders that month.
Last month, China's top diplomat told the head of Japan's National Security Council that China was preparing for "high-level political dialogue" with Japan, stoking hopes of a leaders' meeting.
Sino-Japanese ties, long bedevilled by a dispute over islands in the East China Sea and China's memories of Japan's wartime aggression, have improved since Abe met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November.