Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to hold a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit next week, possibly on Nov. 16, several Japanese government sources said Thursday.

The APEC summit will be held in San Francisco for three days from Nov. 15.

The envisaged bilateral summit, if realized, will be the first between the leaders of Japan and China in around a year. The previous summit was held in Bangkok in November last year.

Takeo Akiba, secretary-general of the National Security Secretariat, will visit China to discuss details of the expected Kishida-Xi summit, the sources said.

The Japanese and Chinese sides are considering scheduling the bilateral summit for Nov. 16, a day after Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden are expected to hold a summit, they also said.

At the envisaged Japan-China summit, Kishida is likely to brief Xi on the safety of the release of treated water containing tritium, a radioactive substance, into the ocean from the meltdown-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station and ask the Chinese leader to lift his country’s blanket import ban on Japanese fishery products.

The import ban was imposed immediately after the treated water release from the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, started in late August.

China strongly opposes the water discharge into the ocean, calling the treated water “nuclear contaminated.” Japan has criticized the Chinese import ban.

With this year marking the 45th anniversary of the entry into force of the Japan-China peace and friendship treaty, however, Kishida has repeatedly stressed the importance of building a constructive and stable relationship between the two East Asian neighbors.

Kishida is also expected to bring up the arrest by Chinese authorities of a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma Inc. of Japan on suspicion of espionage, the government sources said.

Kishida and Xi are also likely to discuss the Middle East situation, according to the sources.

“We want to continue close communication with China at all levels, although a meeting (between Kishida and Xi) has not been arranged yet,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference Thursday.

During his stay in the United States, Kishida is also expected to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.

JIJI Press