The head of the junior partner in Japan's ruling coalition said Tuesday he will visit China next week, nearly three months after postponing a trip there due to strained bilateral ties.
Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi told a news conference he has proposed taking a personal letter from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping to Beijing, and that the prime minister, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, readily agreed to it.
Yamaguchi initially scheduled his trip for August, but relations between Tokyo and Beijing soured after the start on Aug. 24 of the ocean discharge of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, wrecked in the wake of a devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, prompting China to impose a blanket import ban on Japanese seafood.
During his two-day visit from Nov. 22, Yamaguchi plans to demand that the import ban be lifted in talks with leading figures of the Chinese Communist Party and the government, he said.
At their meeting in the Prime Minister's Office earlier Tuesday, Kishida expressed his willingness to hold talks with Xi on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco later this week, Yamaguchi said.
Yamaguchi said he will also request a lease of giant pandas, commonly employed by China as a diplomatic gesture, to Sendai, one of the cities devastated by the 2011 quake and tsunami.