China and Japan hold breakthrough talks in Beijing

Chinese president Xi Jinping and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe held breakthrough formal talks on Monday for the first time since the two leaders took office.

China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, have rowed bitterly in the past two years over disputed islands, regional rivalry and the legacy of Japan's wartime occupation of China.

The meeting between Mr Abe and Mr Xi came after top diplomats agreed last week to work on improving ties and signalled willingness to put their rival claims over the islands on the back burner.

"This is a first step toward improving bilateral relations, returning to the core of a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests," Mr Abe told reporters after the meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders gathering.

Experts have said both sides agreed the deep freeze in diplomatic ties was harming vital economic relations as well as threatening an unintended military clash.

Japan’s direct investment into China fell more than 40 per cent during the first nine months of the year.

Television footage showed Mr Abe waiting for Mr Xi to greet him at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, a departure from usual protocol in which the Chinese leader is on hand waiting for a guest.

Mr Xi was unsmiling as the two shook hands and the two did not speak when they first met.

Columbia University professor Gerry Curtis said Mr Xi’s apparent stiffness in greeting Mr Abe was because of his domestic audience, where memories of Japan’s wartime occupation persist.

“Xi had to be concerned about how the meeting was covered in China,” he said. “Looking like he was meeting his best friend would probably not go down all that well.”

At the meeting, Mr Xi told Mr Abe that “historical issues concern the feelings of more than 1.3 billion Chinese people” and urged him “to continue the path of peaceful development and adopt a prudent military security policy”, China’s foreign ministry said.

China has sought assurances that the Japanese prime minister would not repeat his December 2013 visit to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead. However, Mr Abe said last Friday that last week’s agreement did not cover specific issues, including shrine visits.

Japan’s deputy chief cabinet secretary Katsunubo Kato said there was no direct mention of the disputed isles or the Yasukuni shrine at the talks.

Mr Abe said both leaders agreed to start preparations for a maritime crisis mechanism to prevent clashes at a time when Chinese and Japanese patrol ships and fighter jets operate near the disputed islands in the East China Sea.

He has previously said that there had been no change in Japan’s stance on the isles, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by Beijing.

China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, has urged Japan to properly address the control of the islands. Reuters