Japan's Abe shakes hands with China's Xi at G20

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands and exchanged words on Thursday on the sidelines of a G20 summit, the Japanese government said, in an unexpected show of cordiality.

Relations between the world's second- and third-largest economies have been troubled for months because of a row over tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.