“I don’t think a summit is likely during the Takaichi administration,” the official added.
For the APEC chair, talks with other national leaders are customary.
Xi and then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe held one such meeting at the 2014 summit in Beijing amid tensions that included Abe paying his respects at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
The shrine honours Class-A war criminals as well as the war dead and is regarded by China as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
At the centre of the year-long dispute is Japan’s right to collective self-defence in a survival-threatening situation.
Takaichi told the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, Japan’s lower parliamentary chamber, on November 7, 2025, that a Taiwan contingency “could constitute” such a situation.
Beijing has put pressure on Japan through rare earth export restrictions and calls for Chinese nationals to avoid travelling there.
Xi’s administration treats Taiwan as a core interest and strongly protested Takaichi’s apparent departure from her predecessors’ approach.
“China has maintained a hard-line stance,” a senior Japanese government official observed.