BEIJING: The leaders of China and Japan held an ice-breaking summit on Monday after two years of dangerous animosity.

Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe met in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in what the Japanese prime minister said was a “first step” towards repairing the fractured relationship between the world’s second and third-largest economies.

Beijing and Tokyo’s historically frosty relations have plunged to their lowest in decades over competing claims to Japanese-controlled islets in the East China Sea.

Abe told Japanese media that he asked Xi to establish a hotline to prevent clashes at sea, adding: “I think we will start working on concrete steps toward it.”

The islands, however, were not specifically mentioned during the 30 minutes of talks, Kyodo news agency quoted a Japanese official as saying.

The meeting appeared strained, with footage of the two leaders’ initial handshake showing them looking deadpan and Xi not responding to Abe’s greetings.

“Severe difficulties have emerged in Sino-Japanese relations in recent two years and the rights and wrongs behind them are crystal-clear,” China’s official news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2014