Japan's foreign minister said Sunday he would visit China during the Olympic Games to press Beijing to speed up a probe into a health scare involving Chinese dumplings.
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said China had informed Japan in early July that four Chinese people had fallen ill in June after eating dumplings, the same product that caused a health scare in Japan previously, the AFP reported.
"I will go to China during the Olympics and meet with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi again," the minister told public broadcaster NHK. He did not give a date for the trip.
But the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday that the minister planned to visit from August 16 to 18.
Japanese government confirmation of the latest poisoning in China came only last week -- after news of the latest incident appeared in the Japanese media.
The government has said it withheld the information it at the request of Beijing.
The latest food poisoning cases have cast doubt on Beijing's earlier assertion that the dumplings that sickened Japanese were contaminated with pesticide after leaving the country.
Ten people suffered pesticide poisoning in December and January in Japan after eating the frozen dumplings imported from China, while thousands more complained about feeling ill.