The two last met in Tokyo in April 2012.
Relations between the two countries soured in September 2012 when the Japanese government bought a group of islands in the East China Sea that both sides claim in a growing dispute that threatened to deepen strains between Asia's two biggest economies.
Tokyo insisted it had only peaceful intentions in making the $26.18 million purchase of the three uninhabited islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, until then leased by the government from a Japanese family that had owned them since the early 1970s.
China denounced the plan as illegal and warned it would affect ties.
The islands, which lie south of Okinawa and north of Taiwan, sit in key shipping lanes and are thought to lie close to natural gas deposits.
