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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks to reporters after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo on April 16. (Photo by Uichiro Kasai)
China up close

Behind China's sudden olive branch to Japan

Beijing's about-face is preparation for trade war with Trump

KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer | China

TOKYO -- On April 16, a day before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met U.S. President Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tokyo to meet his counterpart, Taro Kono.

They were relaunching the "high-level economic summit" between Japan and China for the first time in eight years. The rocky relationship between the Asian neighbors has prevented the economic summit, as well as many other bilateral initiatives, from sustaining any momentum.

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