Chinese President Xi Jinping did not support Japan's claim over Russian-held islands off Hokkaido in his talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last month, according to a Chinese source familiar with the matter, abandoning a long-held stance of recognizing them as Tokyo's.
Xi told Putin in their meetings in Moscow that China "does not take either side" regarding the territorial row, in a shift to neutrality from China's position indicated by then-Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1964 to view the four disputed islands as belonging to Japan, the source said.
Bilateral negotiations over the islands known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia have been suspended since Tokyo imposed punitive sanctions against Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.