Xi and Takaichi agree to pursue stable relations

Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to pursue constructive and stable ties at a meeting on Friday that may ease fears she would adopt a more combative approach toward Beijing.

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Takaichi said she raised "serious concerns" about the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Xinjiang in a "candid" first meeting with Xi Jinping.

Xi in turn told Japan's first woman prime minister, long seen as a China hawk, at the talks in South Korea that he hopes her government will have a "correct understanding" of his country, according to state media.

Takaichi has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine that honours Japan's war dead and is an outspoken backer of Taiwan, advocating security ties with the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory.

With both having separately met US President Donald Trump in recent days, Takaichi said she told Xi at the APEC summit that she wanted a "strategic and mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and China".

However, she told reporters that she also raised a number of thorny issues with the Chinese leader, saying that it was "important for us to engage in direct, candid dialogue".

"We... expressed serious concerns regarding actions in the South China Sea, as well as the situations in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," Takaichi said.