TOKYO (Japan) -- The head of Japan's junior ruling coalition partner Komeito party is planning to visit China this month, hoping to hand deliver a letter from Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to Chinese President Xi Jinping, a source close to the matter said Tuesday.

During his planned trip starting April 22, Komeito chief Tetsuo Saito is expected to meet with key figures in the Chinese Communist Party and government and call for stronger exchanges between the two countries' business circles, according to the source.

Saito is also likely to reiterate Tokyo's request for Beijing to lift its blanket ban on Japanese seafood imports imposed after the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific began in August 2023.

Addressing U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies, which have raised fears of a global trade war and rattled markets worldwide, may also be among the topics, the source said.

It will be the first visit to China by a leader of Komeito, a longtime coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party currently led by Ishiba, since November 2023 when then chief Natsuo Yamaguchi held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing.

Yamaguchi held the post for 15 years through last September before he was succeeded by Keiichi Ishii. Saito took over from Ishii as Komeito chief in November.

In January, Hiroshi Moriyama, LDP secretary general, and his Komeito counterpart, Makoto Nishida, visited Beijing and held a regular dialogue session with Chinese Communist Party officials for the first time since October 2018.