Chinas Xi congratulates new Japan PM Ishiba [Video]

Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and welcomed the opportunity to build a “constructive and stable” relationship, state media reported on Wednesday.

Beijing and Tokyo have had diplomatic relations for more than 50 years but friction has been building as China asserts its military presence around disputed territories in the region, and Japan boosts security ties with the United States and its allies.

In August, a Chinese military aircraft staged the first confirmed incursion by China into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time.

And the neighbours’ fraught 20th-century history was brought to the fore in a diplomatic row last month over the fatal stabbing of a Japanese schoolboy in southern China.

Xi nevertheless welcomed his new counterpart, Xinhua news agency reported, saying he hoped the “neighbours separated by a strip of water” could …