A summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi looks unlikely when Asia-Pacific leaders gather in Shenzhen later this month, a senior Japanese government official has said, a year after a row over Taiwan froze relations between the two countries.

"I don't think a summit is likely during the Takaichi administration," the official said, adding that "China has maintained a hard-line stance." It remains unclear whether the two leaders will meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting set for 18 November in Shenzhen, China.

For the summit host, meetings with other national leaders are customary at APEC gatherings. There is precedent for a meeting even amid tension: Xi and then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe held one such meeting at the 2014 summit in Beijing, at a time of friction 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 of collective self-defence in a survival-threatening situation. Takaichi told the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, Japan's lower parliamentary chamber, on 7 November 2025 that a Taiwan contingency "could constitute" such a situation. That designation is the only legal condition under which Japan's Self-Defense Forces can invoke the right of collective self-defence.

One year has passed since the remark, and diplomacy between the two countries remains deadlocked as both sides hold firm. Beijing treats Taiwan as a core interest and strongly protested what it saw as Takaichi's departure from the approach of her predecessors.

China has kept up pressure on Japan across the economic, diplomatic and security spheres since the remark. Beijing has put pressure on Tokyo through rare earth export restrictions and calls for Chinese nationals to avoid travelling to Japan. In January this year it tightened export controls on military dual-use items bound for Japan, with the restrictions covering rare earths, which are essential to advanced technology products.

The pressure has extended beyond trade. In May, two Japanese employees of Fuji Electric Group were detained in Dalian. China also issued a series of measures discouraging travel to Japan and cancelling screenings of Japanese animation and concerts by Japanese singers in China, steps described as an informal ban on Japan.

Takaichi, who won a landslide victory in February's lower house election, has made no concerted push to ease tensions with China. She leaned instead on diplomatic support from the United States, but that avenue has also reached its limits as President Donald Trump seeks to strike a deal directly with Beijing, bypassing Tokyo. Japan's Nikkei newspaper criticised Takaichi for skipping recent summits of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Group of Seven, saying she is missing out on the multilateral diplomacy essential to countering China.

Beijing has said responsibility for the "serious difficulties in China-Japan relations" lies entirely with Tokyo, one year on from the prime minister's controversial comments about Taiwan. Takaichi is planning to visit China this month for the APEC summit, but on Friday Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun accused the Japanese authorities of still showing no willingness to correct the remarks.

Whether the two leaders hold any form of meeting in Shenzhen, even a brief exchange on the sidelines, will be one of the closest-watched questions of the summit. For now, neither side has confirmed a bilateral meeting, and the official doubt expressed in Tokyo suggests the freeze that began with a single parliamentary answer a year ago is set to continue into the leaders' gathering.