China-Japan bilateral tensions remain elevated following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s November 2025 comments linking a Taiwan contingency to Japan’s security interests, prompting Beijing to impose rare-earth export curbs and criticize Japanese defense policies as “militarism.” U.S. President Donald Trump raised the prospect of a Takaichi-Xi meeting during their September 2026 summit, yet Xi declined to engage positively and kept disputes with Tokyo separate from U.S.-China talks. Japan sought a leaders’ encounter on the margins of the November 2026 APEC summit in Shenzhen but received only an offer to meet Premier Li Qiang, which Tokyo rejected. These dynamics, alongside structural frictions over maritime activities, historical issues, and regional security, shape trader assessments of near-term summit prospects.