TOKYO: The foreign ministers of Japan and China were set to meet in Tokyo Thursday, officials said, just as US President Barack Obama was wrapping up his four-nation Asia tour in South Korea.
Japan’s Katsuya Okada and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi were to discuss how to deal with the isolated and nuclear-armed communist state of North Korea, as well as other issues, officials said.

“The meeting is part of high-level talks between Japan and China to discuss a wide range of issues—not only concerns for the two countries, but also regional and global issues,” a foreign ministry official told Agence France-Presse.

Obama, who visited Japan and China on his trip, said Thursday in Seoul he would send envoy Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang on December 8, aiming to bring the North back to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks it quit in April.

Other outstanding issues between Tokyo and Beijing include lingering territorial disputes and a row over food safety.

The Asian giants have in the past sparred over the rights to explore potentially rich gas fields in the East China Sea which Japan has said may extend into its exclusive economic zone.

Japan has complained about China’s development of a nearby gas field—called Tianwaitian by China and Kashi by Japan—which Tokyo contends should be left untouched before talks settle its status.

Another concern for Japan, one of the world’s largest food importers, has been the safety of food from China.

Japan last year ordered retailers to pull Chinese green beans off its shelves after a woman fell ill from eating a product that contained 34,500 times the legal limit of pesticide.

Ten people were also hospitalized, including a girl who temporarily fell into a coma, after eating frozen Chinese-made dumplings last year.

AFP