Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last month, did not support Japan's claims to the islands off Hokkaido prefecture, which Moscow has controlled since World War II.. Thus, he abandoned his longstanding position of recognizing these islands as territory legally belonging to Tokyo..

This is reported by the Hong Kong edition of the South China Morning Post, citing a source informed about the details of the negotiations between the leaders of China and Russia.. Xi told Putin during their meetings in Moscow that China is " Thus, he moved to neutrality, abandoning the position taken by Mao Zedong in 1964, insisting that the occupied islands are the property of Japan..

Bilateral talks over islands known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the South Kuriles in Russia have been put on hold after Tokyo imposed punitive sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine..

“A change in China’s position could complicate the settlement of the decades-long territorial dispute, since Moscow is unlikely to make concessions on this issue now, with the support of Beijing,” the publication writes, citing experts..

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In talks last month, Putin highlighted the importance of promoting a special free trade zone that Moscow set up on the disputed islands last year.. He invited Chinese companies to invest in it. Tokyo's relations with Seoul have improved recently, as high-level talks between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yun Suk-Yol on March 16 show.. Putin told Xi Jinping that Russia cannot count on investment from South Korean firms.

“In response, the Chinese leader voiced China’s neutral position towards the Kuril Islands to Putin, but refused to clarify whether Beijing would allow its companies to join the Russian initiative in this disputed territory..

He only said that he would leave the matter to Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission..

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In July 1964, Mao Zedong told a Japanese Socialist Party delegation sent to China that he believed that the Kuril Islands, under Russian control, " Thus, the PRC leader announced support for the territorial rights of Tokyo. The Chinese government has maintained this position, although it has not been publicly mentioned in recent years.. On maps of China, the disputed islands are marked as "