~外国特派員協会での会見を生中継&アーカイブス~
Toshihiro Nikai, Chairman, General Council of LDP
Wednesday, August 19, 2015, 15:00 - 16:00
自民党 二階俊博総務会長
8月19日(水)15:00-16:00
Ties between Japan and China have been showing signs of a thaw in recent months, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly considering an invitation for the third formal meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping early next month in Beijing.
Leading the charge for Abe's Liberal Democratic Party is Toshihiro Nikai, who took a private delegation of 3,000 Japanese lawmakers, business people and local government officials to the Chinese capital in May. Nikai, a party heavyweight, delivered a letter from Abe to Xi.
While trade and tourism have rebounded since a territorial dispute turned relations their coolest in decades in 2012, ships and planes from both countries continue to tail one another around disputed islands in the East China Sea. Ties have also been strained by Abe's efforts to boost defense and ease the pacifist constraints of Japan's constitution.
Nikai, who was first elected to parliament in 1983, will come to the club to discuss the fractious relationship between Japan and China, and how the countries can move forward once the 70th anniversary commemorations of the end of World War II are out of the way.