Chinese President Xi vows to visit Japan in June to attend G-20 summit

BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday told a Japanese ruling party senior official that he will visit Japan in June to attend this year's summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka.
Xi's pledge came during a meeting with Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai in Beijing. It would be Xi's first trip to Japan since he took power in 2013.

As a special envoy, Nikai gave Xi a letter from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who heads the LDP. The party's No. 2 is visiting Beijing to attend the "One Belt, One Road" summit in the Chinese capital, scheduled to be held later this week.

For years, the two neighbors had been mired in a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The group of uninhabited islets, which are called Diaoyu in China, are controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing.

But Sino-Japanese ties have been markedly improving recently, with 2018 -- the 40th anniversary of the signing and entering into force of the bilateral Treaty of Peace and Friendship -- serving as an incentive to forge better relations.

As Tokyo and Beijing have agreed to work together to facilitate reciprocal visits by their countries' leaders, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Japan in May and Abe made a trip to China in October last year.

Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190425/p2g/00m/0na/008000c