Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa is considering meeting her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi this week to discuss issues including the stabbing death of a Japanese schoolboy in China and the lifting of a ban on seafood imports from Japan, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
If the talks are arranged, Kamikawa and Wang will meet Monday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, after having last met in July in Laos, the sources said.
Kamikawa will likely urge China to craft measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again and make further efforts to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals living in the country.
Meanwhile, a Japanese senior vice foreign minister traveled to Beijing on Sunday, also to address the stabbing that occurred Wednesday near a Japanese school in the southern city of Shenzhen.
During his three-day trip, Yoshifumi Tsuge will meet Chinese government officials over the incident, according to the Foreign Ministry.
The 10-year-old boy, whose father is Japanese and mother is Chinese, died early Thursday morning after he was stabbed in the abdomen on his way to school. The male suspect was apprehended by police stationed near the educational facility.
Police described the knife attack as an isolated incident and said the perpetrator was acting alone, according to local media reports.
On China’s ban on seafood imports, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday that Beijing has agreed to resume them, contingent on third-party nations, including itself, participating in monitoring the discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
BY: The Times Union / KYODO
