Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida plans to visit Beijing in late April for talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, as Tokyo seeks to mend ties with China, sources close to bilateral relations said Thursday.
In what would be his first visit to Beijing since November 2014, Kishida hopes to narrow the two countries' differences over China's actions in the South China Sea and promote high-level bilateral exchanges, the sources said.
China is said to be unhappy with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's public criticism of its fast-paced and massive land reclamation works in the South China Sea, deemed as a way to assert its territorial claims and maritime interests in the region, the sources said.
Beijing has rapped Japan and the United States, calling them outsiders for interfering in its territorial disputes in the sea with smaller Asian claimants, including the Philippines and Vietnam.
Kishida's plan to visit China comes after China's Assistant Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said in talks in Tokyo with Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama on Feb. 29 that Beijing will give positive consideration to a visit by Kishida, the sources said.
