Leaders of Japan and China to hold first summit

Shinzo Abe

President Xi Jinping

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping are to hold their first summit next week, a report said Friday, after presiding over two years of animosity between Asia’s two biggest economies.

The two countries have “agreed to arrange a summit next week” in Beijing on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK said.

Tokyo has long been pressing for such a meeting but Beijing has resisted, with the two sides locked in a territorial dispute and still at odds over World War II history.