The top Japanese and U.S. diplomats on Friday agreed to "pay close attention" to China after leader Xi Jinping started last month a rare third term as chief of the ruling Communist Party with a new leadership, according to a Japanese official.
Meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Seven foreign ministerial gathering in Germany, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also reaffirmed close bilateral cooperation toward the denuclearization of North Korea as concerns grow over a barrage of missile tests by Pyongyang.
The launches, seen at an unprecedented pace this year, are "totally unacceptable," Hayashi said at the outset of the meeting in the western German city of Munster, touching on the test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday and a missile that landed near South Korea's territorial waters a day before.