When they met during an international business conference on the southern Chinese island of Hainan in March, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his Chinese counterpart, Zhu Rongji, agreed to inaugurate a high-level comprehensive forum for dialogue on economic topics.
But more than two months later, the neighboring countries have yet to agree on when they should actually hold the inaugural meeting.
As Zhu pointed out at the time, the forum -- the first of its kind between the world's second and seventh largest economies -- is supposed to "nip in the bud" potential conflicts and keep relations between the current and emerging economic powers on a stable footing in the medium and long terms.