Japan business leaders meet with Chinese vice premier

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng —File photo from Reuters

BEIJING, Feb. 17 — Japanese business leaders including Kosei Shindo, head of the Japan-China Economic Association and adviser to Nippon Steel Corp., met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing on Monday.

Shindo is leading a Japanese delegation on a six-day trip to China through Friday, with Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, and Ken Kobayashi, head of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, joining as top advisers.

A similar delegation of Japanese business leaders met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in January 2024. According to the Japan-China Economic Association, business leaders sought to meet with Li in the latest trip as well.

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“It’s becoming important to deepen dialogue between the governments and companies of both countries,” Tokura said at the start of the meeting with He.

The vice premier said that there is a global rise in conservatism and unilateralism, apparently bearing in mind the additional US tariffs on imports from China implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Also on Monday, the Japanese delegation met with a senior official of the National Development and Reform Commission. The delegation is slated to travel to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province in central China, on Wednesday.

The association has sent a delegation to China almost every year since 1975. Visits were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic but restarted last year after a three-year break.