Japan and China are holding talks in Beijing today after a third weekend of protest in China against what many see as Japan's inability to face up to its wartime past.
However, little progress is expected following the violent protests that - in addition to disputes over territory and Tokyo's bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat - have dragged relations to their lowest point in decades.
Japan Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura is to meet State Counselor Tang Jiaxuan, a former foreign minister who still has broad responsibility for diplomatic issues, at about 2:15 p.m.
Mr Tang, a Japanese speaker who served in the Chinese mission in Japan after the sides established diplomatic ties in 1972, has pledged that China would protect Japan's mission and business in China before the protests got out of hand.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said yesterday that China had nothing to apologise for in relation to the protests, staged in at least 10 cities across China from Shanghai in the east and Shenyang in the northeast to Xiamen in the southeast and Guangzhou in the south.
More than 20,000 protesters marched on the Japan consulate in Shanghai Saturday, breaking windows of Japanese restaurants and pelting the diplomatic compound with rocks and bottles.
The Chinese protesters are angry about new Japanese school textbooks that they claim gloss over Japanese wartime atrocities.