The head of Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party, will postpone his planned visit to China at China’s request, the party announced on Saturday.
Natsuo Yamaguchi was planning to visit China from Monday to Wednesday in hopes of meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and to hand over a personal letter from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
However, the Chinese side on Saturday informed Komeito that “the timing is not appropriate considering the current situation of Japan-China relations,” the party said in a statement.
Japan on Thursday started releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific despite some objections both at home and abroad. China condemned the move, which the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has determined is safe following on-site inspections, and issued a ban on all aquatic products from Japan.
No detectable amount of radioactivity was found in the first fish samples taken in waters near the crippled nuclear plant, the Japanese government said Saturday.
Kishida and the leaders of the United States and South Korea also met last week and agreed to deepen military and economic cooperation. They made their strongest joint condemnation yet of “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” by China in the South China Sea.
Komeito said in a statement that it hoped “to readjust the appropriate timing of the visit in the future.”
The party said the Chinese side had explained that the country sees the importance of Komeito’s long-standing friendly exchanges with China and expressed appreciation for Komeito’s efforts to realize the visit.
