Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Friday she raised "serious concerns" about the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Xinjiang in a "candid" first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi in turn told Japan's first woman prime minister, long seen as a China hawk, at the talks in South Korea that he hopes her government will have a "correct understanding" of his country, according to state media.

Takaichi has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine that honours Japan's war dead and is an outspoken backer of Taiwan, advocating security ties with the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory.

With both having separately met US President Donald Trump in recent days, Takaichi said she told Xi at the APEC summit that she wanted a "strategic and mutually benefic

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