China, Japan begin to mend relations

CHINA and Japan have re-started high-level talks on maritime issues, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in a press release on Wednesday. The talks took place in the Chinese port city of Qingdao on September 23 and 24.

This week’s talks were led by Yi Xianliang, the deputy director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, and Makita Shimokawa, deputy director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. The talks also involved officials from China and Japan’s defense ministries, foreign ministries, maritime affairs bureaus, and energy bureaus. The first round of these high-level maritime talks took place in May 2012; that also marked the last such discussion until this week’s meeting in Qingdao.