Chinese, Japanese leaders won't meet on Olympic sidelines

~~BEIJING – China has ruled out any form of meeting between President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Xi will travel to Russia from February 6-8 to attend the opening ceremony at the invitation of Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

Relations between China and Japan have deteriorated since Abe visited the Yasukuni shrine, which honours 14 class-A World War II criminals. Abe's visit last year was the first by a serving Japanese Prime Minister since 2006. The move exacerbated tensions which had been growing since the Japanese Government purchased the contested Diaoyu Islands.

Since then, China and Japan have seen few high-level political discussions. Foreign ministers of the two nations met in Tokyo last November and agreed to hold a vice-ministerial-level meeting early this year to work towards the resolution of the island dispute and the signing of a peace treaty. However after Abe’s visit to the shrine, China’s Foreign Ministry said Chinese leaders would not meet with him.