The two rivals are embroiled in their worst spat in years, sparked by a maritime territorial dispute, in a year when an increasingly assertive China has eclipsed Japan as the world's second-biggest economy.

Southeast Asian nations that have their own territorial beefs with China have watched the row with interest, as has the United States, which has long been the dominant military power in the Asia-Pacific.

In a sign of the bad blood between Japan and China, they had still not confirmed a bilateral meeting at the Hanoi summit between their premiers, Wen Jiabao of China and Japan's Naoto Kan, by mid-week.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations meets from Thursday in the Vietnamese capital and a 16-nation East Asia Summit is being held Saturday, also to be attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Tuesday: "We hope the Japanese side will take concrete actions to create the necessary conditions and atmosphere for meetings between the two sides."

Wen and Kan met briefly and informally in Brussels during an Asia-Europe meeting on October 4 for their first talks since the maritime incident, but both governments have again traded recriminations since then.

The row started when Japan's coastguard on September 8 arrested a Chinese fishing trawler captain after two collisions near a Japan-administered island chain in a part of the East China Sea with suspected energy resources.

China reacted with fury, issuing protests, scrapping meetings and cultural events in a diplomatic offensive that continued after Japan freed the captain, and nationalist sentiment has sparked street protests in both countries.

China has also levied punitive economic measures, industry sources say, by freezing the export of rare earth minerals, in which it has a near-monopoly. The minerals are crucial for Japan's high-tech industries.

Looming shortages of the minerals -- required for products from iPods and hybrid cars to guided missiles -- have also worried the United States, and have led Japan to look to India and Vietnam as future sources.

The United States was quick to voice support for its ally Japan during the row, while some observers have expressed surprise at China's sabre-rattling.

"Japan caved in to China, but Beijing is the real loser," Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus, wrote in a recent commentary.

"Its words and deeds, which sharply contrasted with Japan's softer approach, helped anti-China 'hawks'," Dujarric said. "Japanese, Americans and others who argue that China's rise is a positive-sum game have lost face."

East Asia security expert Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy also said that "most countries in the region were taken aback, if not shocked, by the strong line that China took".

Many Asian nations already worry about China's growing assertiveness over disputed territories -- especially South China Sea archipelagos also claimed in full or part by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

The United States has weighed in, saying such disputes should be resolved through diplomacy not coercion -- effectively backing its wartime-foe Vietnam, whose fishing boats have been detained by China near disputed islands.

But few in the region will want to draw the ire of rising China, a major source of aid and investment in emerging Asia, analysts say.

"In reality many if not most countries in the Asia-Pacific do not want to get involved in opposing China directly," said Thayer. "They count on the United States and Japan to do that."

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