Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left Friday for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile, where he will have to juggle a wide range of diplomatic issues that span the Pacific.
But Koizumi can breathe a small sigh of relief now that a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao has been officially set for Sunday on the sidelines of the APEC forum.
Speculation had been rife that the meeting might be scuttled after a Chinese nuclear submarine briefly intruded into Japan's territorial waters last week.